

HKISTMA 
AROL:- 




HARLE 



sTRATEl 



J. H^Q-o.--»-y^^ ^ 




CHRISTMAS CAROL 



IN PROSE 



BEING 



^ ©host ^tovii of ©hnsfwas 



BY 



CHARLES DICKENS 

ILLUSTRATED BY 

I- M. GAUGENGIGL ..vo T. V. CHOMINSKI 




BOSTON i 

i^AMUEL E. CASSINO ! 

1 887 . 

I 



N\ 



««h Kv S E. Cassino. 
Copyright, i8S6, by s. 



fti>,. 



CONTENTS. 



Stabc ©nt. 

PAGE 

Marlev's Ghost 7 



Stabf STtoo, 
The First of the Three Spirits 33 

,*tnfac iTIjrcc. 
The Second of the Three Spirits 59 

StriDt iFoiir. 
The Last of the Spirits . . . , 9' 

Static JTifac. 
The End of it ''3 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



4 

S 
6 

7 
8 

9 

lO 

1 1 

12 

'3 
14 

15 
1 6, 

1 7 

1 8 

19 
20. 
21 



NUMl'F.R 

1. Dickens' Portkai]- 
Scrooge .... 

MeRRV ClIRIST.M.A.S 

kxocricr .... 

Mari.ev'.s Ghost . 

Tiii: I'^iKST OF the Spirits 

The Vision' of Ai.i B.\ii.\ 

The F"ezzi\vk; H.\i.i. . 

"Another inoi. h.\s dispeaceu me, 

Baby 

The Seconp of the Spirits 
The Wonderful Pudding 
In the Lighthouse . . 
Hlind-Man's Buff . . 
The Last of the Spirits 
On 'Change .... 

Old Joe's 

Death's Dominion . . 
In the Churchvari) . . 
ScROOGi: Awakes . . . 
The Prize Turkey . . 
Visited hy his Nephew 
" Lli. raise your salary' 
34. "And to Tiny Tim he was a second f 



vther 



p.\(:e 

Frontispiece 
facing 8> 
12 
18' 

22"' 

34^ 

40 

46 - 

48-' 

52- 

6o- 

72-' 

76- 

82 
90 
92 

96 

100 
108 

1 I2j 
116; 
118 
I 18 
120 



Stauc 0nc. 

MARLEY'S GHOST. 



MARLEY'S GHOST. 

MARLEY was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt 
whatever about that. The register of his burial was 
signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the 
chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was 
good upon 'Change for any thing he chose to put his hand 
to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. 

Mind ! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowl- 
edge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I 
might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the 
deadest piece of iron-mongery in the trade. But the wisdom 
of our ancestors is in the simile ; and my unhallowed hands 
shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will there- 
fore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as 
dead as a door-nail. 

Scrooge knew he was dead ? Of course he did. How 
could it be otherwise .? Scrooge and he were partners for I 
don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, 
his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary leg- 
atee, his sole friend and sole mourner. And even Scrooge 
was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was 
an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, 
and solemnized it with an undoubted barp;ain. 



8 MARLEVS GHOST. 

The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the 
point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was 
dead. This must Ise distinctly understood, or nothing wonder- 
ful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were 
not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's father died before the 
play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his 
taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own 
ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gen- 
tleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot — say 
Saint Paul's Churchyard, for instance — literally to astonish 
his son's weak mind. 

Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There 
it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door : 
Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and 
Marley. Sometimes people new^ to the business called 
Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered 
to both names : it was all the same to him. 

Oh ! but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, 
Scrooge ! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutch- 
ing, covetous old sinner ! Hard and sharp as fiint, from 
which no steel had ever struck out generous fire ; secret, 
and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold 
within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, 
shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait ; made his eyes red, 
his thin lips blue, and spoke out shrewdly in his grating 
voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, 
and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature 
always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; 
and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas. 

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. 




'^S 



JIARLEY'S GHOST. 9 

No warmth could warm, nor wintry weather chill him. No 
wind that blew was bitterer than he, no fallim>- snow was 
more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to 
entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. 
The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast 
of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often 
"came down" handsomely, and Scrooge never did. 

Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with 
gladsome looks, "My dear Scrooge, how are you? when 
will you come to see me .^ " No beggars implored him to 
bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock, 
no man or woman ever once in all his life incjuircd the 
way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the 
blindmen's dogs appeared to know him; and when they 
saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways 
and up courts ; and then would wag their tails as though 
they said, " No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark 
master! " 

But what did Scrooge care? It was the very thing he 
liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, 
warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what 
the knowing ones call "nuts" to Scrooge. 

Once upon a time — of all the good days in the year, 
on Christmas Eve — old Scrooge sat busy in his counting- 
house. !t was cold, bleak, biting weather: foeev withal- 
and he could hear the people in the court outside go 
wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their 
breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement-stones 
to warm them. The city clocks had onlv just gone three, 
but it was quite dark already: it had not been light all 

9 



lo 31 AR LEY'S GHOST. 

day: and candles were flaring in the windows of the neigh- 
boring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown 
air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, 
and was so dense without, that although the court was of 
the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. 
To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring 
every thing, one might have thought that Nature lived 
hard by, and was brewing on a large scale. 

The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open that he 
might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little 
cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge 
had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very 
much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't 
replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room ; 
and so surel}' as the clerk came in with the shovel, the 
master predicted that it would be necessary for them to 
part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and 
tried to warm himself at the candle ; in which effort, not 
being a man of a strong imagination, he failed. 

"A merry Christmas, uncle! God sa^-e you!" cried a 
cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who 
came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation 
he had of his approach. 

" Bah ! " said Scrooge, " Humbug ! " 

He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the 
fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was all in 
a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes spar- 
kled, and his breath smoked again. 

" Christmas a humbug, uncle ! " said Scrooge's nephew. 
" You don't mean that, I am sure." 



AfARLEVS GHOST. n 

" I do," said Scrooge. " Merry Christmas ! what right 
have you to be merry ? what reason have you to be merry ? 
You're poor enough." 

" Come, then," returned the nephew gayly. " What right 
have you to be dismal .? what reason have you to be 
morose } You're rich enough." 

Scrooge, having no better answer ready on the spur of 
the moment, said "Bah!" again; and followed it up with 
" Humbug." 

" Don't be cross, uncle," said the nephcw^ 

" What else can I be," returned the uncle, " when I live 
in such a world of fools as this.? Merry Christmas! Out 
upon merry Christmas I What's Christmas time to you but 
a time for paying bills without money ; a time for finding 
yourself a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for 
balancing your books and having every item in 'em through 
a round dozen of months presented dead against you } If I 
could work my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot 
who goes about with ' Merry Christmas ' on his lips, should 
be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of 
holly through his heart. He should ! " 

" Uncle ! " pleaded the nephew. 

" Nephew ! " returned the uncle sternly, " keep Christmas 
in your own way, and let me keep it in mine." 

" Keep it ! " repeated Scrooge's nephew. " But you don't 
keep it." 

" Let me leave it alone, then," said Scrooge. " Much 
good may it do you ! Much good it has ever done you ! " 

" There are many things from which I might have 
derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say," 



12 MARLEVS GHOST. 

returned the nephew ; " Christmas among the rest. But I am 
sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has 
come round — apart from the veneration due to its sacred 
name and origin, if any thing belonging to it can be apart 
from that — as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, 
pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long cal- 
endar of the year, when men and women seem by one 
consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of 
people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers 
to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on 
other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never 
put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it 
has done me good, and zvi/l do me good ; and I say, God 

bless it ! " 

The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded: becoming 
immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, 
and extinguished the last frail spark forever. 

" Let me hear another sound from you'' said Scrooge, 
"and you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situation. 
You're quite a powerful speaker, sir," he added, turning to 
his nephew. " I wonder you don't go into Parliament." 

"Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to- 
morrow." 

Scrooee said that he would sec him — ves, indeed he 
did. He went the whole length of the expression, and said 
that he would sec him in that extremity first. 

" But why .'' " cried Scrooge's nephew. " Why .'' " 

" Why did you get married .' " said Scrooge. 

" Because I fell in love." 

" Because you fell in love ! " growled Scrooge, as if that 



MARLEY'S GHOST. 13 

were the only one thins: in the world more ridiculous than 
a merry Christmas. " Good afternoon ! " 

" Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that 
happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now.''" 

" Good afternoon," said Scrooge. 

"I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why 
cannot we be friends } " 

" Good afternoon," said Scrooge. 

" I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. 
We have never had any quarrel, to which I have been a 
party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, 
and I'll keep my Christmas humor to the last. So A Merry 
Christmas, uncle ! " 

" Good afternoon ! " said Scrooare. 

"And A Happy New Year!" 

" Good afternoon ! " said Scrooafe. 

His nephew left the room without an angry word, not- 
withstanding. He stopped at the outer door to bestow the 
greetings of the season on the clerk, who, cold as he was, 
was warmer than Scrooge ; for he returned them cordially. 

" There's another fellow," muttered Scrooge ; who over- 
heard him : " my clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a 
wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas. I'll retire 
to Bedlam." 

This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had let 
two other people in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant 
to behold, and now stood, with their hats off, in Scrooge's 
oiifice. They had books and papers in their hands, and 
bowed to him. 

" Scrooge and Marley's, I believe," said one of the 

'3 



14 PARLEY'S GHOST. 

gentlemen, referring to his list. " Have I the pleasure of 
addressing Mr. Scrooge or Mr. Marley.''" 

" Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years," .Scrooge 
replied. " He died seven years ago, this very night." 

" We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by 
his surviving partner," said the gentleman, ^^resenting his 
credentials. 

It certainly was, for they had been two kindred spirits.' 
At the ominous word "liberality," Scrooge frowned, and 
shook his head, and handed the credentials back. 

" At this festive season of the vear, Mr. .Scrooq-e," said 
the gentleman, taking up a pen, " it is more than usually 
desirable that we should make some slight provision for 
the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present 
time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries ; 
hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, 
sir. 

" Are there no prisons ? " asked Scrooge. 

" Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the 
pen again. 

And the Union workhouses .^ " demanded Scrooge. "Are 
they still in operation } " 

" They are. Still," returned the gentleman, " I wish I 
could say they were not." 

" The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigor, 
then ? " said Scrooge. 

" Both very busy, sir." 

" Oh ! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that 
something had occurred to stop them in their useful course," 
said Scrooge. " I'm very glad to hear it." 



JIARLJiVS GHOST. 15 

" Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Chris- 
tian cheer of mind or body to the multitude," returned the 
gentleman, "a few of us are endeavoring to raise a fund to 
buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. 
We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, 
when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What 
shall I put you down for.''" 

" Nothing ! " Scrooge replied. 

" You wish to be anonymous ? " 

" I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge. " Since you ask 
me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't 
make merr)- m\'self at Christmas, and I can't afford to make 
idle people merr)'. I help to support the establishments I 
haye mentioned : they cost enough : and those who are badly 
off must go there." 

" Many can't go there ; and many would rather die." 

" If they would rather die," said Scrooge, " they had 
better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides 
— excuse me — I don't know that." 

" But you might know it," observed the gentleman. 

" It's not my business," Scrooge returned. " It's enough 
for a man to understand his own business, and not to inter- 
fere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly. 
Good afternoon, gentlemen ! " 

Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their 
point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labors 
with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more face- 
tious temper than was usual with him. 

Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that peo- 
ple ran about with flaring links, proffering their services to 



i6 MARLEY'S GHOST. 

eo before horses and carriages, and conduct them on their 
way. The ancient tower of a churcli, whose gruff old bell 
was always peeping slily down at Scrooge out of a Gothic 
window in the wall, became invisible, and struck the hours 
and quarters in the clouds, with tremulous \-ibrations after- 
wards, as if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up 
there. The cold became intense. In the main street, at 
the corner of the court, some laborers were repairing the 
gas-pipes, and had lighted a great fire in a brazier, round 
which a party of ragged men and boys were gathered : 
warming their hands and winking their eyes before the 
blaze in rapture. The water-plug being left in solitude, its 
overflowings sullenly congealed, and turned to misanthropic 
ice. The brightness of the shops where holly sprigs and 
berries crackled in the lamp-heat of the windows, made pale 
faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers" and grocers' trades 
became a splendid joke ; a glorious pageant, with which it 
was next to impossible to believe that sucli dull principles 
as bargain and sale had any thing to do. The Lord Mayor, 
in the stronghold of the mighty Mansion House, gave orders 
to his fifty cooks and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord 
Mayor's household should; and even the little tailor, whom 
he had fined five shillings on the previous Monday for 
being drunk and blood-thirsty in the streets, stirred up to- 
morrow's pudding in his garret, while his lean wife and 
the baby sallied out to buy the beef. 

Foggier vet and colder! Piercins:. searchintr, biting cold. 
If the good Saint Dunstan had but nipped the Evil Spirit's 
nose with a touch of such weather as that, instead of using 
his familiar weapons, then indeed he would have roared to 

i6 



MARLEY'S GHOST. 17 

lusty purpose. The owner of one scant young nose, gnawed 
and mumljled by the liungry cold as bones are gnawed by 
dogs, stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with 
a Christmas carol: but at the first sound of — 

" God bless you, merry gentleman ! 
May nothing you dismay ! " 

Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action, that 
the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog and 
even more congenial frost. 

At length the hour of shutting up the counting-house 
arrived. With an ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his stool, 
and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant clerk in the 
Tank, who instantly snuffed his candle out, and put on his 
hat. 

"You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose.''" said Scrooge. 

" If quite convenient, Sir." 

" It's not convenient," said Scrooge, " and it's not fair. 
If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you'd think yourself 
ill used, I'll be bound?" 

The clerk smiled faintly. 

"And yet," said Scrooge, "you don't think nic ill-used, 
when I pay a day's wages for no work." 

The clerk observed that it was only once a year. 

" A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty- 
fifth of December ! " said Scrooge, buttoning his great-coat 
to the chin. " But I suppose you must have the whole day. 
Be here all the earlier next morning; ! " 

The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge walked 
out with a growl. The office was closed in a twinkling, 

•7 



1 8 ■ JlfAKLEY'S GHOST. 

and the clerk, with the long ends of his white comforter 
dangling below his waist (for he boasted no great-coat), 
went down a slide on Cornhill, at the end of a lane of boys, 
twenty times, in honor of its being Christmas-eve, and then 
ran home to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt, to 
play at blindman's-buff. 

Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melan- 
choly tavern ; and having read all the newspapers, and be- 
guiled the rest of the evening with his bankers-book, went 
home to bed. He lived in chambers which had once be- 
longed to his deceased partner. They were a gloomy suite 
of rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard, where 
it had so little business to be, that one could scarcely help 
fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, 
playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and ha\'e forgot- 
ten the way out again. It was old enough now, and dreary 
enough, for nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the other rooms 
being all let out as ofifices. The yard was so dark that 
even Scrooge, who knew its every stone, was fain to grojoe 
with his hands. The fog and frost so hung about the black 
old gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius 
of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold. 

Now, it is a fact, that there w^as nothing at all ' particular 
about the knocker on the door, except that it was very 
large. It is also a fact, that Scrooge had seen it night and 
morning during his whole residence in that place ; also that 
Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as 
any man in the City of London, even including — which is 
a bold word — the corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it 
also be borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one 

i8 




r=^::^V .<«f!e^?^';- 



MAR LEY'S GHOST. ,g 

thought on Marley, since his last mention of his seven-years' 
dead partner that afternoon. And then let any man explain 
to me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his 
key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without 
its undergoing any intermediate process or change : not a 
knocker, but Marley's face. 

Marley 's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow as the 
other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light about 
it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was not angry or 
ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look: 
with ghostly spectacles turned up upon its ghostly forehead. 
The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot-air; 
and though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly 
motionless. That, and its livid color, made it horrible; but 
its horror seemed to be, in spite of the face and beyond its 
control, rather than a part of its own expression. 

As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a 
knocker ao-ain. 

To say that he was not startled, or that his blood was 
not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it had been 
a stranger from infancy, would be untrue. But he put his 
hand upon the key he had relinquished, turned it sturdily, 
walked in, and lighted his candle. 

He did pause, with a moment's irresolution, before he 
shut the door; and he did look cautiously behind it first, as 
if he half-expected to be terrified with the sight of Marley's 
pig-tail sticking out into the hall. But there was nothino- 
on the back of the door, except the screws and nuts that 
held the knocker on ; so he said " Pooh, pooh ! " and closed 
it with a bang 

19 



20 MARLEY'S GHOST. 

The sound resounded through the house Hke thunder. 
Every room above, and every cask in the wine-merchant's 
cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal of echoes 
of its own. Scrooge was not a man to be frightened by 
echoes. He fastened the door, and walked across the hall, 
and up the stairs: slowly too: trimming his candle as he 
went. 

You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-six up 
a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad young Act of 
Parliament; but I mean to say you might have got a hearse 
up that staircase, and taken it broadwise, with the splinter-bar 
towards the wall, and the door towards the balustrades : and 
done it easy. There was plenty of width for that, and room 
to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge thought 
he saw a locomotive hearse going on before him in the gloom. 
Half-a-dozen gas-lamps out of the street wouldn't have lighted 
the entry too well, so you may suppose that it was pretty 
dark with Scrooge's dip. 

Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that: darkness 
is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But before he shut his 
heavy door, he walked through his rooms to see that all was 
right. He had just enough recollection of the face to desire 
to do that. 

Sitting-room, bed-room, lumber-room. As they should be. 
Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa ; a small fire 
in the grate; spoon and basin ready; and the little saucepan 
of gruel (Scrooge had a cold in head) upon the hob. No- 
body under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his 
dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious atti- 
tude aoainst the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire- 



MARLEY'S GHOST. 



21 



guard, old shoes, two fish-baskets, washing-stand on three 
legs, and a poker. 

Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in ; 
double-locked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus 
secured against surprise, he took off his cravat; put on his 
dressing-gown and slippers, and his night-cap; and sat down 
before the fire to take his gruel. 

It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter 
night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and brood over it, 
before he could extract the least sensation of warmth from 
such a handful of fuel. The fire-place was an old one, built 
by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all round 
with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. 
There were Cains and Abels; Pharaoh's daughters, Queens 
of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending through the air 
on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles 
putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figures, to 
attract his thoughts; and yet that face of Marley, seven 
years dead, came like the ancient Prophet's rod, and swal- 
lowed up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank 
at first, with power to shape some picture on its surface 
from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would 
have been a copy of old Marley's head on every one. 

"Humbug!" said Scrooge; and walked across the room. 
After several turns, he sat down again. As he threw his 
head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a 
bell, a disused bell, that hung in the room, and communi- 
cated for some purpose now forgotten with a chamber in the 
highest story of the building. It was with great astonish- 
ment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he 



21 



22 MARLEY'S GHOST. 

looked, he saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly 
in the outset that it scarcely made a sound; but scon it rang 
out loudly, and so did every bell in the house. 

This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but 
it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had begun, 
together. They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep 
down below ; as if some person were dragging a heavy chain 
over the casks in the wine-merchant's cellar. Scrooge then 
remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses 
were described as dragging chains. 

The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound, and 
then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors below; 
then coming up the stairs ; then coming straight towards 
his door. 

" It's humbug still ! " said Scrooge. " I won't believe it." 

His color changed though, when, without a pause, it 
came on through the heavy door, and passed into the room 
before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the dying flame leaped 
up, as though it cried, " I know him ! Marley's ghost ! " and 
fell again. 

The same face: the very same. Marley in his pig-tail, 
usual waistcoat, tights, and boots; the tassels on the latter 
bristling, like his pig-tail, and his coat-skirts, and the hair upon 
his head. The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. 
It was long, and wound about him like a tail ; and it was made 
(for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, 
ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel. His body 
was transparent: so that Scrooge, observing him, and looking 
through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat 
behind. 



I 



MARLEY'S GHOST. 23 

Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, 
but he had never bcHeved it until now. 

No, nor did he beheve it even now. Though he looked 
the phantom through and through, and saw it standing before 
him ; though he felt the chilling influence of its death-cold 
eyes ; and marked the very texture of the folded kerchief 
bound about its head and chin, which wrapper he had not 
observed before : he was still incredulous, and fought aeainst 
his senses. 

"How now!" said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. 
" What do you want with me } " 

" Much ! " — Marley's voice, no doubt about it. 

" Who are )0U .-' " 

" Ask me who I was." 

" Who lucre you then ? " said Scrooge, raising his voice. 
"You're particular — for a shade." He was going to say "/c; 
a shade," but substituted this, as more appropriate. 

" In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley." 

" Can voiL — can you sit down } " asked Scrooge, lookine 
doubtfully at him. 

" I can." 

" Do it then." 

Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know whether 
a ghost so transparent might find himself in a condition to 
take a chair; and felt that in the event of its being impossible, 
it might involve the necessity of an embarrassing explanation. 
But the ghost sat down on the opposite side of the fire-place, 
as if he were quite used to it. 

" You don't believe in me," observed the Ghost. 

" I don't," said Scrooge. 

23 



24 MARLEY'S GHOST. 

" What evidence would you have of my reality, beyond 
that of your senses ? " 

" I don't know," said Scrooge. 

" Why do you doubt your senses ? " 

" Because," said Scrooge, " a little thing affects them. A 
slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may 
be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of 
cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of 
gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are ! " 

Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor 
did he feel, in his heart, by any means waggish then. The 
truth is, that he tried to be smart, as a means of distracting 
his own attention, and keeping down his terror ; for the spec- 
tre's voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones. 

To sit, staring at those fixed, glazed eyes, in silence for a 
moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the \cry deuce with him. 
There was something very awful, too, in the spectre's being 
provided with an infernal atmosphere of its own. Scrooge 
could not feel it himself, but this was clearly the case; for 
though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts, 
and tassels, were still agitated as by the hot vapor from an 
oven. 

" You see this toothpick ? " said Scrooge, returning quickly 
to the charcje, for the reason just assigned; and wishing, 
though it were only for a second, to divert the vision's stony 
gaze from himself. 

" I do," replied the Ghost. 

"You are not looking at it," said Scrooge. 

"But I see it," said the Ghost, "notwithstanding." 

" Well ! " returned Scrooge. " I have but to swallow this, 

24 



MARLEVS GHOST. 25 

and lie for the rest of my days jDersecuted by a legion of gob- 
lins, all of my own creation. Humbug, I tell you — humbug!" 
At this, the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its 
chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that Scrooge 
held on tight to his chair, to save himself from falling in a 
swoon. But how much greater was his horror, when the 
phantom, taking off the bandage round its head, as if it were 
too warm to wear in-doors, its lower jaw dropped down upon 
its breast! 

Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before 
his face. 

" Mercy ! " he said. " Dreadful apparition, why do you 
trouble me } " 

"Man of the worldly mind!" replied the Ghost, '"do you 
believe in me or not } " 

" I do," said Scrooge. " I must. But why do you spirits 
walk the earth, and why do the)- come to me } " 

"It is required of every man," the Ghost returned, "that 
the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, 
and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in 
life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to 
wander through the world— oh, woe is me! — and witness 
what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and 
turned to happiness!" 

Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain, and 
wrung its shadowy hands. 

"You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell me 
why ? " 

" I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. " I 
made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my 



26 MAKLEY'S GHOST. 

own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern 
strange to you ? "' 

Scrooee trembled more and more. 

" Or would you know," pursued the Ghost, " the weight 
and length of the strong coil you bear yourself .■' It was full 
as heavy and as long as this seven Christmas Eves ago. You 
have labored on it since. It is a ponderous chain ! " 

Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation 
of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms 
of iron cable : but he could see nothing. 

" Jacob," he said imploringly. "Old Jacob Marley, tell me 
more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob." 

" I have none to give," the Ghost replied. " It comes from 
other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by other 
ministers to other kinds of men. Nor can I tell you what I 
would. A very little more is all permitted to me. I cannot 
rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never 
walked beyond our counting-house — mark me! — in life my 
spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money- 
changing hole; and weary journeys lie before me!" 

It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became thought- 
ful, to put his hands in his breeches pockets. Pondering on 
what the Ghost had said, he did so now, but without lifting 
up his eyes, or getting off his knees. 

" You must have been very slow about it, Jacob," Scrooge 
observed in a business-like manner, though with humility and 
deference. 

"Slow!" the Ghost repeated. 

" Seven years dead," mused Scrooge. " And travelling all 

the time?" 

26 



MARLEVS GHOST. 27 

" The whole time,' said the Ghost. " No rest, no peace. 
Incessant torture of remorse." 

" You travel fast ? " said Scrooo-e. 
"On the wings of the wind," replied the Ghost. 
" You might have got over a great quantity of ground in 
seven years," said Scrooge. 

The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and clanked 
its chain so hideously in the dead silence of the night, that the 
Ward would have been justified in indicting it for a nuisance. 

"Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed," cried the phan- 
tom, "not to know, that ages of incessant labor by immortal 
creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the 
good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know 
that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, 
whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its 
vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of 
regret can make amends for one life's opportunities misused ! 
Yet such was I ! Oh ! such was I ! " 

" But you were always a good man of business, Jacob," 
faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself. 

"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. 
"Mankind was my business. The common welfare was" my 
business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were 
all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop 
of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!" 

It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were the 
cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the 
ground again. 

" At this time of the rolling year," the spectre said, " I 
suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings 

27 



28 MARLEY'S GHOST. 

with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed 
Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode ? Were there 
no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me?''' 

Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going 
on at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly. 

" Hear me! " cried the Ghost. " My time is nearly gone." 

" I will," said Scrooge. " But don't be hard upon me ! 
Don't be flowery, Jacob ! Pray ! " 

" How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you 
can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible beside you many 
and many a day." 

It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped 
the perspiration from his brow. 

" That is no light part of my penance," pursued the Ghost. 
" I am here to-night to warn you, that you ha\-e yet a chance 
and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my 
procuring, Ebenezer." 

" You were always a good friend to me," said Scrooge. 
" Thank'ee ! " 

"You will be haunted," resumed the Ghost, "by Three 
Spirits." 

Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost's 
had done. 

" Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob .'' " he 
demanded, in a faltering voice. 

" It is." 

"I — I think I'd rather not," said Scrooge. 

"Without their visits," said the Ghost, "you cannot hope 
to shun the path I tread. Expect the first to-morrow, when 
the bell tolls one." 

28 



MAR LEY'S GHOST. 29 

"Couldn't I take 'em all at once, and have it over, Jacob?" 
hinted Scrooge. 

" Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. 
The third upon the next night when the last stroke of twelve 
has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more; and look 
that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed 
between us ! " 

When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper 
from the table, and bound it round its head as before. .Scrooo-e 
knew this by the smart sound its teeth made, when the jaws 
were brought together by the bandage. He ventured to raise 
his eyes again, and found his supernatural visitor confrontino- 
him in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and about 
its arm. 

The apparition walked backward from him ; and at every 
step it took, the window raised itself a little, so that when the 
spectre reached it, it was wide open. It beckoned Scrooge to 
approach, which he did. When they were within two paces 
of each other, Marley's Ghost held up its hand, warning him 
to come no nearer. Scrooge stopped. 

Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear: for on 
the raising of the hand, he became sensible of confused noises 
in the air, incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret ; wail- 
ings inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory. The spectre, 
after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge; 
and floated out upon the bleak, dark night. 

Scrooge followed to the window, desperate in his curiosity. 
He looked out. 

The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and 
thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every 

29 



^^JUi 



30 Jl/AJ^L£V'S GHOST. 

one of them wore chains like Marley's Ghost ; some few (they 
might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were 
free. Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their 
lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a 
white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its 
ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched 
woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a doorstep. 
The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to 
interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power 
for ever. 

Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist en- 
shrouded them, he could not tell. Ikit they and their spirit 
voices faded together ; and the night became as it had been 
when he walked home. 

Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door by 
which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked, as he 
had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undis- 
turbed. He tried to say "Humbug!" but stopped at the first 
syllable. And being, from the emotion he had undergone, or 
the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, 
or the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the 
hour, much in need of repose, went straight to bed without 
undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant. 

30 



THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS. 



THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS. 

WHEN Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking 
out of Ix'd, he could scarcely distinguish the trans- 
parent window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He 
was endeavoring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, 
when the chimes of a neighboring church struck the four 
quarters. So he listened for the hour. 

To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from 
six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to 
twelve ; then stopped. Twelve ! It was past two when he 
went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have 
got into the works. Twelve ! 

He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this 
most preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve; 
and stopped. 

"Why, it isn't possible," said Scrooge, "that I can have 
slept through a whole day and far into another night. It 
isn't possible that any thing has happened to the sun, and 
this is twelve at noon ! " 

The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of 
bed, and groped his way to the window. He was obliged to 
rub the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing-gown before 
he could see any thing; and could see very little then. All 

33 



34 THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPHiFES. 

he could make out was, that it was still very foggy and ex- 
tremely cold, and that there was no noise of people running 
to and fro, and making a great stir, as there unquestionably 
would have been if night had beaten off bright day, and 
taken possession of the world. This was a great relief, be- 
cause " three days after sight of this First of Exchange pay 
to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order," and so forth, would 
have become a mere United States' security if there were 
no days to count by. 

Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, 
and thought it over and over and over, and could make 
nothing of it. The more he thought, the more perplexed 
he was; and the more he endeavored not to think, the 
more he thought. Marley's Ghost bothered him exceedingly. 
Every time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, 
that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a 
strong spring released, to its first position, and presented 
the same problem to be worked all through, "Was it a 
dream or not? " 

Scrooge lay in this state until the chimes had gone three 
quarters more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the 
Ghost had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled 
one. He resolved to lie awake until the hour was past ; and, 
considering that he could no more got to sleep than go to 
Heaven, this was perhaps the wisest resolution in his power. 

The quarter was so long, that he was more than once 
convinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, 
and missed the clock. At length it broke upon his listening 
ear. 



" Ding, dong ! " 



34 




THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRETS. 35 

" A quarter past," said Scrooge, counting. 

"Ding, dong!" 

" Half past ! "' said Scrooge. 

" Ding, dong ! " 

" A quarter to it," said Scrooge. 

"Ding, dong!" 

"The liour itself," said Scrooge triumphantly, '^and noth- 
ing else ! " 

He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now 
did with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy One. Light flashed 
up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed 
were drawn. 

The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, bv 
a hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at 
his back, but those to which his face was addressed. The 
curtains of his bed were drawn aside ; and Scrooee, startino- 
up into a half-recumbcnt attitude, found himself face to face 
with the unearthly visitor who drew them : as close to it as 
I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your 
elbow. 

It was a strange figure — like a child: yet not so like a 
child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural 
medium, wliich gave him the appearance of having receded 
from the view, and being diminished to a child's proportions. 
Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, 
was white as if with age ; and yet the face had not a 
wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. 
The arms were very long and muscular; the hands the 
same, as if its hold were of uncommon strenoth. Its leo-s 
and feet, most delicately formed, were, like those upper 



35 



36 THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPHiETS. 

members, bare. It wore a tunic of the purest white; and 
round its waist was Ijound a lustrous belt, the sheen of 
which was beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly 
in its hand; and, in singular contradiction of that wintry 
emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But 
the strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its 
head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all 
this was visible ; and which was doubtless the occasion of 
its using, in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a 
cap, which it now held under its arm. 

Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with in- 
creasing steadiness, was not its strangest quality. P""or as its 
belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in an- 
other, and what was light one instant at another time was 
dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being 
now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with 
twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head 
without a body: of which dissolving parts no outline would 
be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. 
And in the very wonder of this, it would be itself again ; 
distinct and clear as ever. 

" Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to 
me ? " asked Scrooge. 

" I am ! " 

The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if in- 
stead of beins: so close beside him, it were at a distance. 

" \\'ho, and what are you } " Scrooge demanded. 

" I am the Ghost of Christmas Past." 

" Long past ? " inquired Scrooge, observant of its dwarfish 

stature. 

36 



Till'. FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRFTS. 37 

"No. Your past." 

Perhai^s Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if 
anybody could have asked him, Ijut he had a special desire 
to see the Spirit in his cap, and begged him to be cov- 
ered. 

" What ! " exclaimed the Ghost, " would you so soon put 
out, with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough 
that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, 
and force me through whole trains of years to wear it low 
upon my brow ! "' 

Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend, or 
any knowledge of having wilfully " bonneted " the Spirit at 
any period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what 
business brought him there. 

" Your welfare ! " said the Ghost. 

Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not 
help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have 
been more conducive to that end. The Spirit must have 
heard him thinking, for it said immediately : 

" Your reclamation, then. Take heed ! " 

It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him 
gently by the arm. 

" Rise ! and walk with me ! " 

It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that 
the weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian 
purposes; that bed was warm, and the thermometer a lono- 
way below freezing ; that he was clad but lightly in his 
slippers, dressing-gown, and night-cap; and that he had a 
cold upon him at that time. The grasp, though o-entle as 
a woman's hand, was not to be resisted. He rose: but 

37 



i 



38 THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPHiFTS. 

finding that the Spirit made towards the window, clasped 
its robe in supplication. 

" I am a mortal," Scrooge remonstrated, " and liable to 

fall." 

" Bear but a touch of my hand there" said the Spirit, 
laying it upon his heart, " and 30U shall be upheld in more 
than this ! " 

As the words were spoken, they passed through the 
wall, and stood upon an open country road, with fields on 
either hand. The city had entirely vanished. Not a ves- 
tise of it was to be seen. The darkness and the mist had 
vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with 
snow upon tlie ground. 

"Good Heaven!" said Scrooge, clasping his hands to- 
gether, as he looked about him. " I was bred in this place. 
I was a boy here ! " 

The .Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, 
though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still 
present to the old man's sense of feeling. He was con- 
scious of a thousand odors floating in the air, each one con- 
nected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and 
cares long, long forgotten ! 

"Your lip is trembling," said the Ghost. "And what is 
that upon your cheek ? " 

Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, 
that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him 
where he would. 

"You recollect the way?" inquired the Spirit. 

"Remember it!" cried Scrooge with fervor — "I could 

walk it blindfold." 

.38 



THE FIRST OF TUli THREE SPIRITS. 39 

"Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!" ob- 
served the Ghost. " Let us go on." 

They walked along the road ; Scrooge recognizing every 
gate, and post, and tree ; until a little market-town appeared 
in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding- 
river. Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards 
them with boys upon their backs, who called to other boys 
in country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys 
were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the 
broad fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air 
laughed to hear it. 

" These are but shadows of the things that have been," 
said the Ghost. " They have no consciousness of us." 

The jocund travellers came on ; and as they came, 
Scrooge knew and named them every one. Whv was he 
rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them ! Why did his cold 
eye glisten, and his heart leap up as they went past ! Why 
was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each 
other merry Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and by- 
ways for their several homes ! What was merry Christmas 
to Scrooge.? Out upon merry Christmas! What good had 
it ever clone to him .■' 

" The school is not quite deserted," said the Ghost. " A 
solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still." 

Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed. 

They left the high-road by a well remembered lane, and 
soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little 
weathercock-surmounted cupola on the roof, and a bell hano-- 
ing in it. It was a large house, but one of broken fortunes; 
for the spacious offices were little used, their walls were 

39 



40 THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRETS. 

damp and moss)-, their windows broken, and tlieir gates de- 
cayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables ; and the 
coach-houses and sheds were overrun with grass. Nor was 
it more retentive of its ancient state within; for entcrino- the 
dreary hall, and glancing through the open doors of manv 
rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold, and vast. 
There was an earthly savor in the air, a chillv bareness in 
the place, which associated itself somehow with too much 
getting up by candle-light, and not too much to eat. 

They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a 
door at the back of the house. It ojjened before them, and 
disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by 
lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a 
lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire ; and Scrooge sat 
down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self 
as he had used to be. 

Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle 
from the mice behind tlie panelling, not a drip from the half- 
thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among 
the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle 
swinging of an empty store-door, no, not a clicking in the 
fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with softening influ- 
ence, and gave a freer passage to his tears. 

The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his 
younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man in 
foreign garments, wonderfully real and distinct to look at, 
stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and 
leading an ass laden with wood by the bridle. 

"Why, it's AH Baba ! " Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. 
'It's dear old honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know! One 

44 



'W^ » 



/i' 




'^p 



w 



TT 



M 



I 



THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS. 41 

Christmas time, when 3-ondcr soHtary child was li'ft here all 
alone, he did come, for the first time, just like that. Poor 
boy! And Valentine," said Scrooge, "and his wild brother, 
Orson; there they go! And what's his name, who was put 
down in his drawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus; don't 
you see him! And the Sultan's Groom turned upside-down 
by the Genii; there he is upon his head! Serve him rioht. 
I'm glad of it. What business had he to be married to the 
Princess ! " 

To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his 
nature on such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice be- 
tween laughing and crying, and to see his heightened and 
excited face, would have been a surprise to his business 
friends in the city, indeed. 

"There's the Parrot!" cried Scrooge. "Green body and 
yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the 
top of his head ; there he is ! Poor Robin Crusoe, he called 
him, when he came home again after sailing round the island. 
'Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin Crusoe.?' 
The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't. It was 
the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his 
life to the little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!" 

Then with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his 
usual character, he said, in pity for his former self, "Poor 
boy ! " and cried again. 

"I wish," Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his 
pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with 
his cuff: "but its too late now." 

"What is the matter.?" asked the Spirit. 

"Nothing," said Scrooge. "Nothing. There was a boy 



41 



42 THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS. 

sinofincr a Christmas Carol at mv door last nifrht. I should 
like to have oriven him somethins;: that's all." 

The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand : say- 
ine as it did so, " Let us see another Christmas ! " 

Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the 
room became a little darker and more dirty. The panels 
shrunk, the windows cracked ; fragments of plaster fell out 
of the ceiling, and the naked laths were shown instead ; but 
how all this was brought about, Scrooge knew no more than 
you do. He only knew that it was quite correct ; that every 
thing had happened so; that there he was, alone again, when 
all the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays. 

He was not reading now, but walking up and down de- 
spairingly. Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and with a mourn- 
ful shaking of his head glanced anxiously towards the door. 

It opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy, 
came darting in, and putting her arms about his neck, and 
often kissing him, addressed him as her " Dear, dear brother." 

"I have come to bring you home, dear brother!" said 
the child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to 
laueh. "To brinfr vou home, home, home!" 

"Home, little Fan?" returned the boy. 

" Yes ! " said the child, brimful of glee. " Home, for good 
and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder 
than he used to be, that home's like Heaven ! He spoke so 
gently to me one dear night when I was going to bed, that 
I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come 
home ; and he said, Yes, you should ; and sent me in a 
coach to bring you. And you're to be a man ! " said the 
child, opening her eyes, "and are never to come back here; 

42 



THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPHUTS. 43 

but first, we're to be together all the Christmas long, and 
have the merriest time in all the world." 

" You are quite a woman, little Fan ! " exclaimed the boy. 
She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch 
his head; but being too little, laughed again, and stood on 
tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him, in her 
childish eagerness, towards the door; and he, nothing loth 
to go, accompanied her. 

A terrible voice in the hall cried, "Bring down Master 
Scrooge's box, there!" and in the hall appeared the school- 
master himself, who glared on Master Scrooge with a fero- 
cious condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of 
mind by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him 
and his sister into the veriest old well of a shivering best- 
parlor that ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall, 
and the celestial and terrestrial globes in the windows, were 
waxy with cold. Here he produced a decanter of curiously 
light wine, and a block of curiously heavy cake, and admin- 
istered/instalments of those dainties to the young people: 
at the same time, sending out a meagre servant to offer a 
glass of "something" to the postboy, who answered that he 
thanked the gentleman, but if it was the same tap as he 
had tasted before, he had rather not. Master Scrooge's 
trunk being by this time tied on to the top of the chaTse, 
the children bade the schoolmaster good-by right willingly; 
and getting into it, drove gaily down the garden-sweep: "the 
quick wheels dashing the hoar-frost and snow from off the 
dark leaves of the evergreens like spray. 

"Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have 
withered," said the Ghost. " But she had a large heart ! " 

43 



44 THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS. 

" So she had," cried Scrooge. " You're right. I'll not 
gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid ! " 

" She died a woman," said the Ghost, " and had, as I 
think, children." 

" One child," Scrooge returned. 

" True," said the Ghost. " Your nephew ! " 

Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind ; and answered 
briefly, "Yes." 

Although they had but that moment left the school be- 
hind them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a 
city, where shadowy passengers passed and repassed ; where 
shadowy carts and coaches battled for the way, and all the 
strife and tumult of a real city were. It was made plain 
enough, by the dressing of the shops, that here too it was 
Christmas time again; but it was evening, and the streets 
were lighted up. 

The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and 
asked Scrooge if he knew it. 

"Know it!" said Scrooge. " \\'as I apprenticed here.-*" 

They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a 
Welsh wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had 
been two inches taller he must have knocked his head 
against the ceiling, Scrooge cried in great excitement: 

"Why, it's old Fezziwig ! Bless his heart, its Fezziwig 
alive again ! " 

Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the 
clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his 
hands ; adjusted his capacious waistcoat ; laughed all over 
himself, from his shoes to his organ of benevolence ; and 
called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice : 

44 



THE FIRST OF THE TIIKFE SPHiFTS. 45 

"Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!" 

Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, caine 
briskly in, accompanied by his fcllow-'prentice. 

"Dick Wilkins, to be sure!" said Scrooge to the Ghost, 
"Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much attached 
to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear!" 

"Yo ho, my boys!" said Fezziwig. "No more work to- 
night. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's 
ha\e the shutters up." cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap 
of his hands, "before a man can say, Jack Robinson!" 

You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it! 
They charged into the street with the shutters — one, two, 
three — had 'em up in their places — four, five, six — barred 
'em and pinned 'em — seven, eight, nine — and came back 
before you could have got to twelve, panting like race- 
horses. 

"Hilli-ho!" cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the 
high desk with wonderful agility. "Clear away, my lads, 
and let's have lots of room here! Hilli-ho. Dick! Chirrup, 
Ebenezer! " 

Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have 
cleared away, or couldn't have cleared away, with old Fezzi- 
wig looking on. It was done in a minute. Every movable 
was packed off, as if it were dismissed from public life for 
e^'ermore ; the floor was swept and watered, the lamps were 
trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the warehouse 
was as snug, and warm, and dr)-, and bright a ball-room as 
you would desire to see upon a winter's night. 

In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the 
lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty 



45 



46 THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS. 

stomach-aches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial 
smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and 
lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they 
broke. In came all the young men and \\omen employed 
in the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin, 
the baker. In came the cook, with lier brother's particular 
friend, the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, 
who was suspected of not having board enough from his 
master; trying to hide himself behind the girl from next 
door but one, who was proved to ha\'e had her ears pulled 
by her Mistress. In they all came, one after another; some 
shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some 
pushing, some pulling; in they all came, anyhow and every- 
how. Away they all went, twenty couple' at once, hands 
half round and back again the other way ; down the middle 
and up again ; round and round in various stages of affec- 
tionate grouping; old top couple always turning up in the 
wrong place ; new top couple starting off again, as soon as 
they got there ; all top couples at last, and not a bottom 
one to help them. When this result was brought about, old 
Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, 
"Well done!" and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot 
of porter especially provided for that purpose. But scorning 
rest upon his reappearance, he instantly began again, though 
there were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been 
carried home, exhausted, on a shutter; and he were a bran- 
new man resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish. 

There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and 
more dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and 
there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great 

46 



THE FIRST OF TIIF THREE SPIRFTS. 47 

piece of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty 
of beer. But the great effect of the evening came after the 
Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind ! 
The sort of man who knew his business better than you or I 
could have told it him !) struck up " Sir Koger de Coverley." 
Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. 
Top couple too ; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for 
them ; three or four and twenty pair of partners ; people 
who were not to be trifled with ; people who zvotild dance, 
and had no notion of walking. 

But if they had been twice as many: ah, four times: old 
Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so would 
Mrs. Fezziwig. As to her, she was worthy to be his partner 
in every sense of the term. If that's not high praise, tell 
me higher, and I'll use it. A positive light appeared to 
issue from F"ezziwig's calves. They shone in every part of 
the dance like moons. You couldn't have predicted, at any 
given time, what would become of 'em next. And when old 
Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance; 
advance and retire, hold hands with your partner; bow and 
curtsey ; corkscrew ; thread-the-needle, and back again to your 
place; Fezziwig "cut" — cut so deftly, that he appeared to 
wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without 
a stagger. 

When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke 
up. Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on 
either side the door, and shaking hands with every person 
individually as he or she went out, wished him or her a 
Merry Christmas. When everybody had retired but the 
two 'prentices, they did the same to them ; and thus the 

47 



48 THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRFTS. 

cheerful voices died away, and the lads were left to their 
beds; which were under a counter in the back-shop. 

During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like 
a man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the 
scene, and with his former self. He corroborated every 
thing, remembered every thing, enjoyed every thing, and 
underwent the strangest agitation. It was not until now, 
when the bright faces of his former self and Dick were 
turned from them, that he remembered the Ghost, and be- 
came conscious that it was looking full upon him, while the 
light upon its head burnt very clear. 

" A small matter," said the Ghost, " to make these silly 
folks so full of gratitude." 

" Small ! " echoed Scrooge. 

The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, 
who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig: 
and when he had done so, said — 

" Why ! Is it not ? He has spent but a few pounds of 
your mortal money: three or four, perhaps. Is that so much 
that he deserves this praise .'' " 

" It isn't that," said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and 
speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self. 
" It isn't that. Spirit. He has the power to render us happy 
or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a 
pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and 
looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impos- 
sible to add and count 'em up : what then ? The happiness 
he gives is quite as great as if it cost a fortune." 

He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped. 

" What is the matter } " asked the Ghost. 

48 



^^^>fcfe^ 



./ i-^' 



- w 







THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS. 



49 



" Nothing particular," said Scrooge. 

"Something, I think?" the Ghost insisted. 

" No," said Scrooge. " No. I should like to be able to 
say a word or two to my clerk just now! That's all." 

His former self turned dt)\vn the lamps as he gave utter- 
ance to the wish ; and Scrooge and the Ghost again stood 
side by side in the open air. 

" ]\Iy time grows short," observed the Spirit. "Quick!" 

This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom 
he could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For 
again Scrooge saw himself. He was older now; a man in 
the prime of life. His face had not the harsh and rigid 
lines of later years; but it had begun to wear the signs of 
care and avarice. There was an eager, greedy, restless mo- 
tion in the eye, which showed the passion that had taken 
root, and wliere the shadow of the growing tree would fall. 

He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young 
girl in a mourning-dress: in whose eyes there were tears, 
which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of 
Christmas Past. 

" It matters little," she said softly. " To you, very little. 
Another idol has displaced me ; and if it can cheer and 
comfort you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, 
I have no just cause to grieve." 

" What Idol has displaced you } " he rejoined. 

" A golden one." 

"This is the even-handed dealing of the world !" he said. 
"There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and 
there is nothing it professes to condemn with such seventy 
as the pursuit of wealth ! " 

49 



so THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRFTS. 

" You fear the world too much," slie answered gently. 
" All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being 
beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your 
nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion. 
Gain, engrosses you. Have I not .'' " 

" What then .'' " he retorted. " Even if I have grown so 
much wiser, what then 1 I am not changed towards you." 

She shook her head. 

"Am I.?" 

" Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were 
both poor and content to be so, until, in good season, we 
could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. 
You arc changed. When it was made, you were another 
man." 

" I was a boy," he said impatiently. 

" Your own feeling tells you that vou were not what you 
are," she returned. '' I am. That which promised happiness 
when we were one in heart, is fraught with misery now that 
we are two. How often and how keenly I have thought of 
this, I will not say. It is enough that I hai'c thought of it, 
and can release you." 

" Have I ever sought release ? " 

" In words. No. Never." 

" In what, then .^ " 

"In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in anotlier 
atmosphere of life; another Hope as its great end. In 
every thing that made my love of any worth or value in 
your sight. If this had never been between us," said the 
girl, looking mildly, but with steadiness upon him ; " tell me, 
would you seek me out and try to win me now '^. Ah, no ! " 

5° 



THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRETS. 51 

He seemed to 3-ielcl tt) the justice of this supposition, in 
spite of himself. But he said, with a struggle, " You think 
not." 

" I would gladly think otherwise if I could," she answered, 
"Heaven knows! When /have learned a Trulli like this, 
I know liow strong and irresistible it must be. But if you 
were free to-day, to-morrow, yesterda)-, can even I believe 
that you would choose a dowerless girl — you who, in your 
very confidence with her, weigh every thing by Gain : or, 
choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your 
one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your 
repentance and regret would surely follow? I do; and I 
release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you once 
were." 

He was about to speak ; but with her head turned from 
him, she resumed. 

" You may — the memory of what is jaast half makes me 
hope you will — have pain in this. A very, very brief time, 
and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an un- 
profitable dream, from which it happened well that you 
awoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen ! " 

She left him ; and they parted. 

" Spirit ! " said Scrooge, " show me no more ! Conduct 
me home. Whv do vou deliaiht to torture me .? " 

" One shadow more ! " exclaimed the Ghost. 

" No more ! " cried Scrooge. " No more. I don't wish to 
see it. Show me no more ! " 

But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms, 
and forced him to observe what happened next. 

They were in another scene and place : a room, not very 

5' 



52 THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS. 

larae or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter 
fire sat a beautiful voun"" siirl, so like the last that Scrooe'e 
believed it was the same, until he saw /icr, row a comely 
matron, sitting opposite her daughter. The noise in this 
room was perfectl}' tumultuous, for there were more children 
there than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count; 
and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not 
forty children conducting themselves like one, but every 
child was conducting itself like forty. The consequences 
were uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care; 
on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily, 
and enjoyed it very much ; and the latter, soon beginning 
to mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands 
most ruthlessly. What would 1 not have given to be one 
of them I Though I never could have been so rude, no, no ! 
I wouldn't for the wealth of all tlie world have crushed that 
braided hair, and torn it down ; and for the precious little 
shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off. God bless my soul ! to 
save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport, as they 
did, bold voun"- brood, I couldn't have done it ; 1 should have 
expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment, 
and never come straight again. And yet I should have 
dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have ques- 
tioned her, that she might have opened them ; to have looked 
upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never raised a 
blush; to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of which 
vvould be a keepsake beyond price : in short, I should have 
liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest license of a child, 
and yet been man enough to know its value. 

But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a 

52 




r 



AT. 




THE FIRST OF THE THREE SP/RfTS. 



53 



rush immediately ensued that slie with laughing face and 
plundered dress was borne towards it the centre of a flushed 
and boisterous group, just in time to greet the father, who 
came home attended by a man laden with Christmas toys 
and presents. Then the shouting and struggling, and the 
onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter ! The 
scaling him, with chairs for ladders, to dive into his pockets, 
despoil him of brown-paper parcels, hold on tight by his 
cravat, hug him round the neck, pommel his back, and kick 
his legs in irrepressible affection ! The shouts of wonder 
and delight with which the development of every package 
was received ! The terrible announcement that the baby had 
been taken in the act oi putting a doll's frying-pan into his 
mouth, and was more than suspected of having swallowed a 
fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter! The immense 
relief of finding this a false alarm! The joy, and gratitude, 
and ecstasy! They are all indescribable alike. It is enough 
that by degrees the children and their emotions got out of 
the parlor and by one stair at a time up to the top of the 
house ; where they went to bed, and so subsided. 

And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever, 
when the master of the house, having his daughter leaning 
fondly on him, sat down with hor and her mother at his 
own fireside; and when he thought that such another crea- 
ture, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might have 
called him father, and been a spring-time in the haggard 
winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed. 

" Belle," said the husband, turning to his wife with a 
smile, " I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon." 

" Who was it .^ " 

53 



54 THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRTTS. 

" Guess ! "' 

" How can I ? Tut, don't I know," she added in the 
same breath, laughing as he laughed. " Mr. Scrooge." 

"Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and 
as it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could 
scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point 
of death, I hear; and there he sat alone. Quite alone in the 
world, I do believe." 

" .Spirit ! " said Scrooge in a broken voice, " remove me 
from this place." 

" I told you these were shadows of the things that have 
been," said the Ghost. " That they are what they are, do 
not blame me ! " 

" Remove me ! " Scrooge exclaimed. " I cannot bear it ! " 

He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked 
upon him with a face, in which in some strange way there 
were fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled 
with it. 

" Leave me ! Take me back. Haunt me no longer ! " 

In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which 
the Ghost with no visible resistance on its own part was 
undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Scrooge observed 
that its light was burning high and bright; and dimly con- 
necting that with its influence over him, he seized the extin- 
guisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down upon 
its head. 

The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher 
covered its whole form ; but though Scrooge pressed it down 
with all liis force, he could not hide the light : which streamed 
from under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground. 

54 



THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRFfS. 55 

He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome bv 
an irresistible drowsiness ; and, further, of being in his own 
bedroom. He gave the cap a parting squeeze, in wliicli his 
hand relaxed ; and had barely time to reel to bed, before he 
sank into a heavy sleep. 

S5 



Stauc (^l)rcc. 

THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS. 



THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS. 

AWAKING in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, 
and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, 
Scrooge had no occasion to be told that the bell was again 
upon the stroke of One. He felt that he was restored to 
consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial 
purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger 
despatched to him through Jacob Marley's intervention, liut 
finding that he turned uncomfortably cold when he began 
to wonder which of his curtains this new spectre would draw 
back, he put them every one aside with his own hands ; and 
lying down again, established a sharp look-out all round the 
bed. For he wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment 
of its appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise 
and made nervous. 

Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume them- 
selves on being acquainted with a move or two, and being 
usually equal to the time-of-day, express the wide range of 
their capacity for adventure by observing that they are good 
for any thing from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter ; between 
which opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably 
wide and comprehensive range of subjects. Without ven- 
turing for Scrooge quite as hardily as this, I don't mind 

59 



6o THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPHilTS. 

calling on you to believe that he was ready for a good 
broad field of strange appearances, and that nothing be- 
tween a baby and a rhinoceros would have astonished him 
very much. 

Now, being prepared for almost any thing, he was not 
by anv means prepared for nothing; and, consequently, \\ hen 
the Bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he was taken 
with a violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, 
a quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing came. All this 
time, he lav upon his bed, the very core and centre of a 
blaze of ruddy light, which streamed upon it when the clock 
proclaimed the hour; and which, being only light, was more 
alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make 
out what it meant, or would be at ; and was sometimes ap- 
prehensive that he might be at that very moment an inter- 
esting case of spontaneous combustion, without having the 
consolation of knowing it. At last, however, he began to 
think — as you or I would have thought at first; for it is 
always the person not in the predicament who knows what 
ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably 
have done it too — at last, I say, he began to think that the 
source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the ad- 
joining room : from whence, on further tracing it, it seemed 
to shine. This idea taking full possession of his mind, he 
got up softly and shuffled in his slippers to the door. 

The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange 
voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. He 
^obeyed. 

It was his own room. There was no doubt about that. 

But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The 

60 





¥. 




I 



THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS. 6i 

walls and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it 
looked a perfect grove, from every part of which bright 
gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mis- 
tletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little 
mirrors had been scattered there; and such a mighty blaze 
went roaring up the chimney, as that dull petrifaction of a 
hearth had never known in Scrooge's time, or Marley's, or 
for many and many a winter season gone. Heaped up upon 
the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, 
poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths 
of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red- 
hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious 
pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of inmch, 
that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In 
easy state upon this couch, there sat a jolly giant, glorious to 
see ; who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty's 
horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge, 
as he came peeping round the door. 

" Come in ! " exclaimed the Ghost. " Come in ! and know 
me better, man ! " 

Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this 
Spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been ; and 
though its eyes were clear and kind, he did not like to meet 
them. 

" I am the Ghost of Christmas Present," said the Spirit. 
" Look upon me ! " 

Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple 
deep green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This 
garment hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious 
breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed 

6i 



62 ■ THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS. 

by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds 
of the 2;arnient, were also bare ; and on its head it wore no 
other covering than a holly wreath set here and there with 
shinino- icicles. Its dark brown curls were lono; and free: 
free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its 
cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanor, and its joyful air. 
Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard ; but no 
sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with 
rust. 

" You have never seen the like of me before ! " exclaimed 
the Spirit. 

" Never," Scrooge made answer to it. 

" Have never walked forth with the \-ounger members of 
my family ; meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers 
born in these later years } " pursued the Phantom. 

" I don't think I have," said Scrooge. " I am afraid I 
have not. Have you had many brothers. Spirit?" 

" More than eighteen hundred," said the Ghost. 

"A tremendous family to provide for!" muttered Scrooge. 

The Ghost of Christmas Present rose. 

"Spirit," said Scrooge submissively, "conduct me where 
you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I 
learnt a lesson which is working now. To-night, if you have 
aught to teach me, let me profit by it." 

" Touch my robe ! " 

Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast. 

Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, 

poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, 

fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. So did the room, 

the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood 

62 



THE SECOXD OF THE THREE SPIRITS. C^ 

in the city streets on Christmas morning, where (for the 
weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk 
and not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow 
from the pavement in front of their dwellings, and from 
the tops of their houses : whence it was mad delight to the 
boys to see it come plumping down into the road below, 
and splitting into artificial little snowstorms. 

The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows 
blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow 
upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground; 
which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows 
by the heavy wheels of carts and wagons ; furrows that 
crossed and recrossed each other hundreds of times where 
the great streets branched off, and made intricate channels, 
hard to trace, in the thick yellow mud and icy water. The 
sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up 
with a dingy mi^t, half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier 
particles descended in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all the 
chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, 
and were blazing away to their dear hearts' content. There 
was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town, and 
yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest 
summer air and brightest summer sun might have endeav- 
ored to diffuse in vain. 

For the people who were sho\'elling away on the house- 
tops were jovial and full of glee ; calling out to one another 
from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious 
snowball — better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest 
— laughing heartily if it went right, and not less heartily if 
it went wrong. The poulterers' shops were still half oj^en, 

63 



64 THE SECOND OE THE THREE SPIRITS. 

and the fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. There were 
great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like 
the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors 
and tumbling out into the street in their ajaoplectic opu- 
lence. There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish 
Onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish 
Friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at 
the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung- 
up mistletoe. There were pears and apples clustered high 
in blooming pyramids ; there were bunches of grapes, made, 
in the shopkeepers' benevolence, to dangle from conspicu- 
ous hooks, that people's mouths might water gratis as they 
passed ; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, re- 
calling in their fragrance ancient walks among the woods, 
and pleasant shufHings ankle-deep through withered leaves ; 
there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off 
the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great 
compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and 
beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after 
dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among these 
choice fruits in a bowl, thnuoh members of a dull and stas;- 
nant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was some- 
thing going on ; and, to a fish, went gasping round and 
round their little world in slow and passionless excitement. 

The Grocers' ! oh the Grocers' ! nearly closed, with per- 
haps two shutters down, or one ; but through those gaps 
such glimpses ! It was not alone that the scales descending 
on the counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and 
roller parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were 
rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the 

64 



THE SECOND OE THE THREE SPHilTS. 65 

blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the 
nose, or even that the raisins were so jjlcntiful and rare, 
the almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so 
long and straight, the other spices so delicious, the candied 
fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make 
the coldest lookers-on feel faint and subsequently bilious. 
Nor was it that the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the 
French plums blushed in modest tartness from their highly- 
decorated boxes, or that every thing was good to eat and in 
its Christmas dress : but the customers were all so hurried 
and so eager in the hopeful promise of the dav, that they 
tumbled up against each other at the door, clashing their 
wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the 
counter, and came running back to fetch them, and com- 
mitted hundreds of the like mistakes in the best humor pos- 
sible ; while the Grocer and his people were so frank and 
fresh that the polished hearts with which they fastened their 
aprons behind might have been their own, worn outside for 
general inspection, and for Christmas daws to peck at if 
they chose. 

But soon the steeples called good people all to church 
and chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets 
in their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at 
the same time there emerged from scores of by streets, lanes, 
and nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their 
dinners to the bakers' shops. The sight of these poor rev- 
ellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood 
with Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and taking 
off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on 
their dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon 

65 



66 THE SECOND OE THE THREE SPHHTS. 

kind of torch, for once or twice, when there were angry words 
between some dinner-carrier^ who had jostled with each other, 
he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and tlieir 
good-humor was restored directly. For they said, it was a 
shame to cjuarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was! 
God love it, so it was ! 

In time the bell ceased, and the bakers were shut up; 
and yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these 
dinners and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed 
blotch of wet above each baker "s oven ; where the pavement 
smoked as if its stones were cooking too. 

" Is there a peculiar flavor in what you sjjrinkle from 
your torch ? " asked Scrooge. 

" There is. My own." 

"Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day.?" 
asked Scrooge. 

" To any kindly given. To a poor one most." 

" Why to a poor one most } " asked Scrooge. 

" Because it needs it most." 

"Spirit," said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, "I 
wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, 
should desire to cramp these people's opportunities of inno- 
cent enjoyment." 

" I ! " cried the -Spirit. 

" You would deprive them of their means of dining every 
seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said 
to dine at all," said Scrooge. "Wouldn't you.?" 

" I ! " cried the .Spirit. 

"You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day.?" 
said Scrooge. "And it comes to the same thine." 

66 



THE SECOXD or THE THREE SJ'/KT/S. 67 

"/seek!" exclaimed tlie Spirit. 

"Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your 
name, or at least in that of vour family," said Scrooee. 

■'There are some upon this earth of ours," returned the 
Spirit, "who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds 
of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness 
in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and 
kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charee 
their doings on themselves, not us." 

Scrooge promised that he would ; and they went on, in- 
visible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the 
town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which 
Scrooge had obser\ed at the baker's) that notwithstanding 
his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place 
with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as 
gracefully, and like a supernatural creature, as it was possi- 
ble he could have done in any lofty hall. 

And perhaps it was the pleasure the good .Spirit had in 
showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind, 
generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor men, 
that led him straight to .Scrooge's clerk's; for there he went, 
and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and on the 
threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped to bless 
Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinklings of his torch. 
Think of that! Bob had but fifteen " Bob " a week himself; 
lie pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian 
name; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his 
four-roomed house ! 

Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out 
but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, 

67 



68 THE SECOND OF THE THREE SIUKITS. 

which are cheap, and make a goodly show for sixpence ; 
and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second 
of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter 
Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and 
getting the corners of his monstrous shirt-collar (Bob's pri- 
vate property, conferred upon his son and heir in honor of 
the day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly 
attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable 
Parks. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came 
tearing in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt 
the goose, and known it for their own ; and basking in luxu- 
rious thoughts of sage-and-onion, these young Cratchits 
danced about the tabic, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit 
to the skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly 
choked him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes, bubbling 
up, knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and 
peeled. 

" What has ever got your precious father, then .-^ " said 
Mrs. Cratchit. " And your brother. Tiny Tim ; and Martha 
warn't as late last Christmas Day by half an hour." 

"Here's Martha, mother!" said a girl, appearing as she 
spoke. 

"Here's Martha, mother !" cried the two young Cratchits. 
" Hurrah ! There's sm/i a goose, Martha ! " 

"Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you 
are!" said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and 
taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with ofificious zeal. 

" We'd a deal of work to finish up last night," replied the 
girl, "and had to clear away this morning, mother!" 

" W^ell ! Never mind so long as you are come," said 

68 



THE SECOND OE THE THREE SP/KEfS. 69 

Mrs. Ci-atchit. "Sit ye down before the fire, my clear, and 
have a warm, Lord bless yc ! " 

"No no! rhere's father coming," cried the two young 
Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. "Hide, Martha, 

hide!" , ^ , 

So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, 

with at least three feet of comforter, exclusive of the fringe, 
hanoing down before him ; and his threadbare clothes darned 
up and'' brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his 
shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and 
had his limbs supported by an iron frame. 

" Why, Where's our Martha?" cried Bob Cratchit, lookmg 

round. 

"Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit. 

" Not coming ! " said Bob, with a sudden declension m 
his high spirits; for he had been Tim's blood-horse all the 
way fmm church, and had come home rampant. "Not com- 
ing upon Christmas Day!" 

Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only 
in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet 
door and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits 
hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, 
that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper. 

" And how did little Tim behave ? " asked Mrs. Cratchit, 
when she had rallied Bob on his credulity and Bob had 
huo-cred his daughter to his heart's content. 

°"as good as gold," said Bob, "and better. Somehow 
he -ets thoughtful sitting by himself so much, and thinks 
the ''strangest\hings you ever heard. He told me, coming 
home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, bc- 

69 



70 THE SECOXD OF THE THREE SPIRETS. 

cause he was a cripple, and it migiit he pleasant to tliem to 
remember uj3on Christmas Da}- who made lame beggars walk 
and blind men see." 

Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and 
trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing 
strong and hearty. 

His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and 
back came Tinv Tim before another word was spoken, es- 
corted by his brother and sister to his stool beside the fire ; 
and w^hile Bob, turning up his cuffs — as if, poor fellow, they 
were capable of being made more shabby — compounded 
some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred 
it round and round and put it on the hob to simmer; 
Master Peter and the two ubicjuitous young Cratchits went 
to fetcli the goose, with which they soon returned in high 
procession. 

Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a 
goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to 
which a black swan was a matter of course: and in truth it 
was something very like it in that house. Mrs. Cratchit 
made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hiss- 
ing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible 
vigor; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha 
dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tinv Tim beside him in 
a tiny corner at the table ; the two young Cratchits set chairs 
for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard 
upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest 
they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be 
helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. 

It was succeeded by a breathless pause as Mrs. Cratchit, 

70 



THE SECOXD OF THE THREE SPHilTS. ji 

looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge 
it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long-expected 
"ush of .stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all 
round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited bv the two 
young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his 
knife, and feebly cried " Hurrah ! " 

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't be- 
lieve there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness 
and flavor, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal 
admiration. Eked out bv the apple-sauce and mashed pota- 
toes, it was a sufificient dinner for the whole family; indeed, 
as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small 
atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at last! 
Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits 
in particular were steeped in sage and onion to the eye- 
brows! But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, 
Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone — too nervous to bear wit- 
nesses — to take the pudding up, and bring it in. 

Suppose it should not be done enough ! Suppose it 
should break in turning out ! Suppose somebody should 
have Q:ot over the wall of the back-vard and stolen it, while 
they were merrv with the goose : a supposition at which the 
two young Cratchits became livid ! All sorts of horrors 
were supposed. 

Hallo ! A great deal of steam I The pudding was out 
of the copper. A smell like a washing-day ! That was the 
cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastry-cook's next 
door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that! 
That was the pudding. In half a minute ]\Irs. Cratchit 
entered : flushed, but smiling proudly : with the pudding, 

71 



72 THE SECOXD OF THE THREE SPIRITS. 

like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing- in 
half a quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christ- 
mas holly stuck into the top. 

Oh, a wonderful pudding! r3ob Cratchit said, and calmly 
too, that he regarded it as tJie greatest success achieved by 
Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that 
now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had 
had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had 
something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was 
at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have 
been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would ha\e blushed 
to hint at such a thing. 

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, 
the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in 
the jug being tasted and considered perfect, apples and 
oranges were put upon the table, and a shovelful of chest- 
nuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round 
the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning- 
half a one ; and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family 
display of glass ; two tumblers and a custard-cup without a 
handle. i 

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well 
as golden ofoblets would have done; and Bob served it out 
with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered 
and crackled noisily. Then Bob proposed : 

"A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!" 

Which all the family re-echoed. 

"God bless every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all. 

He sat very close to his father's side, upon his little stool. 

Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the 

72 



'3^e- 








THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS. -ji 

child, and wi.shcd to keep him 1)}^ his side, and dreaded that 
he might be taken from him. 

" Spirit," said Scrooge, witli an interest he had never felt 
before, " Tell me if Tiny Tim will live." 

"I see a vacant seat," replied the Ghost, "in the poor 
chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully 
preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, 
the child will die." 

"No, no," said Scrooge. "Oh no, kind Spirit! sa)- he 
will be spared." 

" If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none 
other of my race," returned the Ghost, "will find him here. 
What then ? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and 
decrease the surplus population." 

Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words cjuoted by 
the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief. 

" Man," said the Ghost, " if man you be in heart, not 
adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered 
What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what 
men shall live, what men shall die.'' It may be that in the 
sight of Heaven, vou are more worthless and less fit to live 
than millions like this poor man's child. O God ! to hear 
the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life 
amons: his huna;rv brothers in the dust." 

Scrooge bent before the Ghost's rebuke, and trembling 
cast his eyes upon the ground. But he raised them speedily 
on hearing his own name. 

" Mr. Scrooge ! " said Bob ; " I'll give you Mr. Scrooge, 
the Founder of the Feast ! " 

"The Founder of the Feast indeed!" cried Mrs. Cratchit, 

73 



yo THE SECOXD OF THE THREE SPIRITS. 

them. Here again were shadows on the window-blind of 
guests assembhng; and there a group of handsome girls, all 
hooded and fur-booted, and all chattering at once, tripped 
lightly off to some near neighbor's house ; where, woe upon 
the single man who saw them enter — artful witches: well 
they knew it — in a glow! 

But if you had judged from the numbers of people on 
their way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought 
that no one was at home to give them welcome when they 
got there, instead of every house expecting company, and 
piling up its fires half-chimney high. Blessings on it, how 
the Ghost exulted ! How it bared its breadth of breast, and 
opened its capacious palm, and on, floated outpouring, with 
a generous hand, its bright and harmless mirth on every 
thing within its reach ! The very lamplighter, who ran on 
before dotting the dusky streets with specks of light, and 
who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed 
out loudly as the Spirit passed : though little kenned the 
lamplighter that he had any company but Christmas ! 

And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, 

they stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous 

masses of rude stone were cast about, as thouoh it were the 

burial-place of giants ; and water spread itself wheresoever 

it listed — or it would have done so, but for the frost that 

held it prisoner; and nothing grew but moss and furze, and 

coarse rank sjr^ss. Down in the west the settintj sun had 

left a streak of fiery red, which glared upon the desolation 

for an instant, like a sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, 

lower yet, was lost in the thick gloom of darkest night. 

" What place is this ? " asked Scrooge. 

76 



THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS. 



/ / 



"A place where Miners live, who labor in the bowels of 
the earth," returned the Spirit. "But they know me. See!" 

A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly 
they advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of mud 
and stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round 
a glowing frre. An old, old man and woman, with their 
children and their children's children, and another genera- 
tion beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire. 
The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling 
of the wind upon the barren waste, was sincino- them a 
Christmas song; it had been a very old song when he was 
a boy; and from time to time they all joined in the chorus. 
So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite 
blithe and loud ; and so surely as they stopped, his vio-or 
sank again. 

The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooo-e hold his 
robe, and passing on above the moor, sped whither.? Not 
to sea.? To sea. To Scrooge's horror, looking back, he 
saw the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind 
them ; and his ears were deafened by the thundering of 
water, as it rolled, and roared, and raged among the dread- 
ful caverns it had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the 
earth. 

Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some leao-ue 
or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed, 
the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse. 
Great heaps of sea-weed clung to its base, and storm-birds 
— born of the wind, one might suppose, as sea-weed of the 
water — rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed. 

But even here, two men who watched the light had made 



77 



78 THE SECOXD OF THE THREE SPHilTS. 

a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed 
• out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their 
horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they 
wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog; 
and one of them: the elder, too, with his face all damaged 
and scarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old 
ship might be: struck up a sturdy song that was like a Gale 
in itself. 

Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving 
sea — on, on — until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, 
from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside 
the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the 
officers who had the watch ; dark, ghostly figures in their 
several stations ; but every man among them hummed a 
Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below 
his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas Day, 
with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on 
board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder 
word for another on that day than on any dav in the vear • 
and had shared to some extent in its festivities; and had 
remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had known 
that they delighted to remember him. 

It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the 
moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it 
was to move on through the lonely darkness over an un- 
known abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as 
Death: it was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus en- 
gaged, to hear a hearty laugh. It was a much greater sur- 
prise to Scrooge to recognize it as his own nephew's, and 
to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room, with the 

78 



THE SECOXD OF THE THREE SP/RTES. 79 

Spirit standing smiling by his side, and looking at that same 
nephew with approving affability ! 

"Ha, ha!" laughed Scrooge's nephew. "Ha, ha, ha!" 

If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know 
a man more blest in a laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I 
can say is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him 
to me, and I'll cultivate his acquaintance. 

It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that 
while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is noth- 
ina; in the world so irresistibly contaofious as laughter and 
good-humor. When Scrooge's nephew laughed in this way: 
holding his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into 
the most extravagant contortions : Scrooge's niece, by mar- 
riage, laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled 
friends, being not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily. 

"Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!" 

"He said that Christmas was a humbuo:, as I live!" cried 
Scrooge's nephew. " He believed it too ! " 

"More shame for him, Fred!" said Scrooge's niece indig- 
nantly. Bless those women; they never do anv thing by 
halves. They are always in earnest. 

She was very pretty : exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled, 
surprised-looking, capital face ; a ripe little mouth, that seemed 
made to be kissed — as no doubt it was; all kinds of good 
little dots about lier chin, that melted into one another when 
she laughed ; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in 
anv little creature's head. Altogether she was what vou 
would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory, 
too. Oh, perfectly satisfactory ! 

" He's a comical old fellow," said Scrooge's nephew, " that's 

79 



8o THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPH^ITS. 

the trutli ; and not so pleasant as he miglit be However, 
his offences carry their own punishment, and I Iiave nothing 
to say against him." 

" I am sure he is very rich, Fred," hinted Scrooge's niece. 
" At least you always tell mc so." 

"What of that, my dear!" said Scrooge's nephew. "His 
wealth is of no use to him. He don't do any good with it. 
He don't make himself comfortable with it. He hasn't the 
satisfaction oC thinking — ha, ha, ha! — that he is ever going 
to benefit Us with it." 

" I have no patience with him," observed Scrooge's niece. 
Scrooge's niece's sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed 
the same opinion. 

" Oh, I have ! " said Scrooge's nephew. " I am sorry for 
him ; I couldn't be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers 
by his ill whims.' Himself, always. Here, he takes it into 
his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine with 
us. What's the consequence } He don't lose much of a 
dinner." 

"Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner," interrupted 
Scrooge's niece. Everybody else said the same, and they 
must be allowed to have been competent judges, because they 
had just had dinner; and, with the desert upon the table, 
were clustered round the fire, by lamplight. 

"Well! I am very glad to hear it," said Scrooge's nephew, 
"because I haven't any great faith in these young house- 
keepers. What do you say, Topper } " 

Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's 

niece's sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched 

outcast, who had no right to exj^ress an opinion on the sub- 

80 



rilE SECOXD OF THE THREE SPIRITS. Si 

ject. Whereat Scrooge's niece's sister — the plump one with 
the lace tucker: not the one with the roses • — blushed. 

" Do go on, Fred," said Scrooge's niece, clapping her 
hands. "He never finishes what he begins to say! He is 
such a ridiculous fellow ! " 

Scrooge's nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it 
was impossible to keep the infection off, though the plump 
sister tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar, his example 
was unanimously followed. 

"I was only going to say," said Scrooge's nephew, "that 
the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not mak- 
ing merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant 
moments, which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses 
pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, 
either in his mouldy old oiifice or his dusty chambers. I 
mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he 
likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas 
till he dies, but he can't help thinking better of it — I defy 
him — if he finds me going therein good temper, year after 
year, and saying. Uncle Scrooge, how are you.'' If it only 
puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, 
thafs something; and I think I shook him, yesterday." 

It was their turn to laugh now, at the notion of his 
shaking Scrooge. But being thoroughly good-natured, and 
not much caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed 
at any rate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and 
passed the bottle, joyously. 

After tea, they had some music. For they were a musical 
family, and knew what they were about when they sung a 
Glee or Catch, I can assure you : especially Topper, who 



82 THE SECOXD OF THE THREE SPIRITS. 

could growl awa}- in the bass like a good one, and never 
swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face 
over it. Scrooge's niece played well upon the harp; and 
played among other tunes a simple little air (a mere nothing: 
you might learn to whistle it in two minutes) which had 
been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the 
boarding-school, as he had been reminded by the Ghost of 
Christmas Past. When the strain of music sounded, all the 
things that Ghost had shown him came upon his mind; he 
softened more and more ; and thought that if he could have 
listened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated the 
kindnesses of life for his own happiness with his own hands, 
without resorting to the sexton's spade that buried Jacob 
Rlarley. 

But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. 
After a while they played at forfeits ; for it is good to be 
children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, 
when its mighty Founder was a child Himself. Stop! There 
was first a game at blind-man's buff. Of course there was. 
And I no more believe Topper was really blind than I be- 
lieve he had eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it was 
a done thing between him and Scrooge's nephew ; and that 
the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went 
after that plump sister in the lace tucker was an outrage 
on the credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire- 
irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping up against the 
piano, smothering himself among the curtains, wherever she 
went, there went he. He always knew where the plump 
sister was. He ViOuldn't catch anybody else. If you had 
fallen up against him, as some of them did, and stood there, 



THE SECOXD OF THE THREE SPIRITS. 83 

he would have made a feint of endeavoring to seize you, 
which would have been an affront to your understanding, 
and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the 
plump sister. She often cried out that it wasn't fair; and 
it really was not. But when at last he caught her; when, 
in spite of all her silken rustlings and her rapid flutterings 
past him, he got her into a corner whence there was no 
escape ; then his conduct was the most execrable. For his 
pretending not to know her, his pretending that it was nec- 
essary to touch her head-dress, and further to assure himself 
of her identity by pressing a certain ring upon her finger, 
and a certain chain about her neck, was vile, monstrous! 
No doubt she told him her opinion of it, when, another 
blind-man being in office, they were so very confidential 
together, behind the curtains. 

Scrooge's niece was not one of the blind-man's-buff party, 
but was made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool, 
in a snug corner, where the Ghost and Scrooge were close 
behind her. But she joined in the forfeits, and loved her 
love to admiration with all the letters of the alphabet. Like- 
wise at the game of How, When, and Where, she was very 
great, and to the secret joy of Scrooge's nephew, beat her 
sisters hollow: though they were sharp girls too, as Topper 
could have told you. There might have been twenty peo- 
ple there, young and old, but they all played; and so did 
Scrooge, for, wholly forgetting, in the interest he had in 
what was o-oin<>' on, that his voice made no sound in 
their ears, he sometimes came out with his guess cjuite 
loud, and very often guessed right, too ; for the sharpest 

needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut in the eye, 

S3 



84 THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS. 

was not sharper than Scrooge : bhmt as he took it in his 
head to be. 

The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, 
and looked upon him with such favor that he begged like 
a boy to be allowed to sta}- until the guests departed. But 
this the Spirit said could not be done. 

" Here's a new game," said Scrooge. " One half-hour, 
Spirit, only one ! " 

It was a game called Yes and No, where Scroose's 
nephew had to think of something, and the rest must find 
out what; he only answering to their questions Yes or No 
as the case was. The brisk fire of questioning to which he 
was exposed elicited from him that he was thinking of an 
animal, a live animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage 
animal, an animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and 
talked sometimes, and lived in London, and walked about 
the streets, and wasn't made a show of, and wasn't led by 
anybody, and didn't live in a menagerie, and was never killed 
in a market, and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a 
bull, or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At 
every fresh question that was put to him, this nephew burst 
into a fresh roar of laughter; and was so inexpressibly tickled, 
that he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. At 
last the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out: 

" I have found it out ! I know what it is, Fred ! I 
know what it is ! " 

"What is it?" cried Fred. 

" It's your Uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge ! " 

Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal 
sentiment, though some objected that the reply to " Is it a 

84 



TlTi: SECOXD OF rilE THREE SPIRITS. 85 

bear?" ought to have been "Yes;" inasmuch as an answer 
in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thouehts 
from Mr. Scrooge, supposing the}- had ever had any tendency 
that way. 

" He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure," said 
Fred, "and it would be ungrateful not to drink his health. 
Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the 
moment; and I say 'Uncle Scrooge!'" 

"Well! Uncle Scrooge!" they cried. 

" A Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to the old 
man, whatever he is!" said Scrooge's nephew, " He wouldn't 
take it from me, but may he have it, nevertheless. Uncle 
Scrooge ! " 

Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and 
light of heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious 
company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech, 
if the Ghost had given him time. But the whole scene passed 
off in the breath of the last word spoken by his nephew ; and 
he and the Spirit were again upon their travels. 

Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they 
visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood be- 
side sick-beds, and they were cheerful ; on foreign lands, and 
they were close at home ; by struggling men, and they were 
patient in their greater hope ; by poverty, and it was rich. 
In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery's every refuge, 
where vain man in his little brief authority had not made 
fast the door, and barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing, 
and taught Scrooge his precepts. 

It was a long night if it were only a night; but Scrooge 
had his doubts of this, because the Christmas holidays ap- 

8s 



S6 THE SECOND OE THE THREE SPH<ITS. 

peared to be condensed into the sjaace of time they passed 
together. It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained 
unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew older, clearly 
older. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke 
of it, until they left a children's Twelfth Night party, when, 
looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place, 
he noticed that its hair was gray. 

" Are Spirits' lives so short .'' " asked Scrooge. 

" My life upon this globe is very brief," replied the Ghost. 
" It ends to-nioht." 

" To-nioht ! " cried Scroosfe. 

"To-night at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing 
near." 

The chimes were ringing the three-quarters past eleven 
at that moment. 

" Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask," said 
Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe, " but I see 
something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding 
from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw.'^" 

" It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it," was 
the Spirit's sorrowful reply. " Look here." 

From the foldino;s of its robe it brouo;ht two children ; 
wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt 
down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment. 

" O man ! look here. Look, look, down here ! " exclaimed 
the Ghost. 

They were a l^oy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, 
scowling, wolfish ; but prostrate, too, in their humility. 
Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, 
and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled 

86 



THE SECOXD or 77//: TIT/iE/-. SP//i/TS. .S; 

hand, like that of age, had pinched and twisted them, and 
pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat en- 
throned de\ils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, 
no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, 
through all the mvsteries of wonderful creation, has monsters 
half so horrible and dread. 

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to 
him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but 
the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie 
of such enormous magnitude. 

" Spirit ! are they yours .' " Scrooge could say no more. 

"They are Man's," said the Spirit, looking down upon 
them. " And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. 
This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them 
both, and all of their degree ; but most of all beware this 
boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, 
unless the writing be erased. Deny it ! " cried the Spirit, 
stretchinsf out its hand towards the citv. " Slander those 
who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and 
make it worse ! And bide the end ! "' 

" Have they no refuge or resource .'' "' cried Scrooge. 

" Are there no prisons .'' " said the Spirit, turning on him 
for the last time with his own words. " Are there no work- 
houses ? " 

The bell struck twelve. 

Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not. 
As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the 
prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting up his eyes, be- 
held a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like a 

mist alona: the ground, towards him. 

87 



Stanc /our. 

THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS. 



THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS. 

THE Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When 
it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; 
for in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed 
to scatter gloom and mystery. 

It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed 
its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save 
one outstretched hand. But for this it would have been 
difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it 
from the darkness by which it was surrounded. 

He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside 
him, and that its mysterious presence filled him wdth a solemn 
dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither spoke nor 

moved. 

" I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To 
Come ? " said Scrooge. 

The Spirit answered not, but pointed downward with its 

hand. 

"You are about to show me shadows of the things that 
have not happened, but will happen in the time before us," 
Scrooge pursued. " Is that so. Spirit ? " 

The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an 
instant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head. 
That was the only answer he received. 

91 



92 THE LAST OF THE SP/E/TS. 

Although well used to ghostly company bv this timci 
Scrooge feared the silent shape so much that his legs trem- 
bled beneath him, and he found that he could hardly stand 
when he prepared to follow it. The Spirit paused a mo- 
ment, as observing his condition, and gixing him time to 
recover. 

But Scrooge was all the worse for this. It thrilled him 
with a vague uncertain horror, to know that behind tlie dusky 
shroud there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon him, while 
he, though he stretched his own to the utmost, could see 
nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap of black. 

" Ghost of the Future ! " he exclaimed, " I fear you more 
than any Spectre I have seen. But, as I know your purpose 
is to do me good, and as I hope to be another man from 
what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it 
with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me .'' " 

It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight 
before them. 

" Lead on ! " said Scrooge. " Lead on ! The night is 

o o 

waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead 
on. Spirit ! " 

The Phantom mo\'ed away as it had come towards him. 
Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him 
up, he thought, and carried him along. 

They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city 
rather seemed to spring up about them, and encompass 
them of its own act. But there they were, in the heart of 
it; on 'Change, amongst the merchants, who hurried up 
and down, and chinked the money in their pockets, and 
conversed in groups, and looked at their watches, and trifled 



THE LAST OF THE SPlREfS. 93 

thoughtfully witli tlicir great gold seals; and so forth, as 
Scrooge had seen them often. 

The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men. 
Observing that the hand was pointed to them, Scrooge ad- 
vanced to listen to their talk. 

" No," said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, " I 
don't know much about it, either way. I only know he's 
dead." 

"When did he die.?" inquired another. 

" Last night, I believe." 

" Why, what was the matter with him .? " asked a third, 
taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff-box. 
" I thought he'd never die." 

" God knows," said the first, with a yawn. 

" What has he done with his money .'' " asked a red-faced 
gentleman with a pendulous excresence on the end of his 
nose, that shook like the gills of a turkey-cock. 

" I haven't heard," said the man with the large chin, 
yawning again. " Left it to his Company, perhaps. He 
hasn't left it to we. That's all I know." 

This pleasantry was received with a general laugh. 

" It's likely to be a very cheap funeral," said the same 
speaker; "for upon my life I don't know of anybody to go 
to it. Suppose we make up a party and volunteer.''" 

" I don't mind going if a lunch is provided," observed 
the gentleman with the excrescence on his nose. " But I 
must be fed, if I make one." 

Another laughed. 

" Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after 
all," said the first speaker, " for I never wear black gloves, 

93 



94 THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS. 

and I never eat lunch. But I'll offer to go, if anvbody else 
will. When I come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that 
I wasn't his most particular friend; for we used to stop and 
speak whene\'er we met. By, by ! " 

Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with 
other groups. Scrooge knew the men, and looked towards 
the Spirit for an explanation. 

The Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed 
to two persons meeting. Scrooge listened again, thinking 
that the explanation might lie here. 

He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of 
business : very wealthy, and of great importance. He had 
made a point always of standing well in their esteem: in a 
business point of view, that is; strictly in a business point 
of view. 

"How are you .'' " said one. 

" How are you .'' " returned the other. 

"Well!" said the first. "Old Scratch has got his own 
at last, hey .' " 

" So I am told," returned the second. " Cold, isn't it ? " 

" Seasonable for Christmas time. You're not a skater, I 
suppose ! " 

" No. No. Something else to think of. Good morn- 
ing!" 

Not another word. That was their meetinfr, their con- 
versation, and their parting. 

Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the 
Spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently 
so trivial ; but feeling assured that they must have some 
hidden purpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely 

94 



THE LAST OF THE SPHHTS. 95 

to be. They could scarcely be supposed to have any bear- 
ing on tlic death of Jacob, his old partner, for that was 
Past, and this Ghost's province was the Future. Nor could 
he think of any one immediately connected with himself 
to whom he could apply them. But nothing doubting that 
to whomsoever they applied they had some latent moral for 
his own impro^•ement, he resolved to treasure up every word 
he heard and every thing he saw, and especially to observe 
the shadow of himself when it appeared. For he had an 
expectation that the conduct of his future self would give 
him the clue he missed and would render the solution of 
* these riddles easy. 

He looked about in that very place for his own image; 
but another man stood in his accustomed corner, and though 
the clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there, 
he saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that 
poured in through the Porch. It gave him little surprise, 
however; for he had been revolving in his mind a change 
of life, and thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolu- 
tions carried out in this. 

Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with its 
outstretched hand. When he roused himself from his 
thoughtful quest, he fancied, from the turn of the hand, and 
its situation in reference to himself, that the Unseen Eyes 
were looking at him keenly. It made him shudder, and feel 
very cold. 

They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part 
of the town, where .Scrooge had never penetrated before, 
although he recognized its situation and its bad repute. 
The ways were foul and narrow; the shops and houses 

95 



96 THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS. 

wretched ; the people half-naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly. 
Alleys and archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged 
their offences of smell, and dirt, and life upon the strag- 
gling streets, and the whole quarter reeked with crime, with 
filth, and misery. 

Far in this den of infamous resort there was a low- 
browed, beetling shop, below a pent-house roof, where iron, 
old rags, bottles, bones, and greasy offal were bought. Upon 
the floor within were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, 
chains, hinges, files, scales, weights, and refuse iron of all 
kinds. Secrets that few would like to scrutinize were bred 
and hidden in mountains of unseemly rags, masses of cor- 
rupted fat, and sepulchres of bones. Sitting in among the 
wares he dealt in, by a charcoal-stove made of old bricks, 
was a gray-haired rascal, nearly seventy years of age, who 
had screened himself from the cold air without by a frowsy 
curtaining of miscellaneous tatters, hung upon a line, and 
smoked his pipe in all the luxury of calm retirement. 

Scrooae and the Phantom came into the i^resence of this 
man just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the 
shop. But she had scarcely entered, when another woman, 
similarly laden, came in too; and she was closely followed 
by a man in faded black, who was no less startled by the 
sight of them than they had been upon the recognition of 
each other. After a short period of blank astonishment, in 
which the old man with the pipe had joined them, they all 
three burst into a laugh. 

"Let the charwoman alone to be the first!" cried she 
who had entered first. "Let the laundress alone to be the 
second; and let the undertaker's man alone to be the third. 

96 



THE LAST OF THE SJ'JR/TS. 97 

Look here, old Joe, here's a chance! If we haven't all three 
met here without meaning it!" 

" You couldn't have met in a better place," said old Joe, 
removing his pipe from his mouth. "Come into the parlor. 
You were made free of it long ago, you know ; and the other 
two an't strangers. Stop till I shut the door of the shop. 
Ah ! How it shrieks ! There an't such a rusty bit of metal 
in the place as its own hinges, I believe; and I'm sure there's 
no such old bones here as mine. Ha, ha! We're all suita- 
ble to our calling, we're well matched. Come into the parlor. 
Come into the parlor." 

The parlor was the space behind the screen of rags. 
The old man raked the fire together with an old stair-rod, 
and having trimmed his smoky lamp (for it was night), with 
the stem of his pipe, put it in his mouth again. 

While he did this, the woman who had already spoken 
threw her bundle on the floor and sat down in a flauntins: 
manner on a stool ; crossing her elbows on her knees, and 
looking with a bold defiance at the other two. 

"What odds then .^ What odds, Mrs. Dilber.?" said the 
woman. " E\-ery person has a right to take care of them- 
selves, //c always did ! " 

" That's true, indeed ! " said the laundress. " No man 
more so." 

" Why, then, don't stand staring as if you was afraid, 
woman ; who's the wiser ? We're not going to pick holes in 
each other's coats, I suppose ? " 

"No, indeed!" said Mrs. Dilber and the man toeether. 
" We should hope not." 

" Very well, then ! " cried the woman. " That's enough. 

97 



98 THE LAST OF THE SPHHTS. 

Who's the worse for the loss of a few things Hke these "^ 
Not a dead man, I suppose." 

" No, indeed," said Mrs. Dilber, laughing. 

" If he wanted to keep "em after he was dead, a wicked 
old screw," pursued the woman, " why wasn't he natural in 
his lifetime ? If he had been, he'd have had somebody to 
look after him when he was struck with Death, instead of 
lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself." 

" It's the truest word that ever was spoke," said Mrs. 
Dilber. " It's a judgment on him." 

" I wish it was a little heavier one," replied the woman ; 
" and it should have been, you may depend upon it, if I could 
have laid my hands on any thing else. Open that bundle, 
old Joe, and let me know the value of it. Speak out plain. 
I'm not afraid to be the first, nor afraid for them to see it. 
We knew pretty well that we were helping ourselves before 
we met here, I believe. It's no sin. Open the bundle, Joe." 

But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this ; 
and the man in faded black, mounting the breach first, pro- 
duced /lis plunder. It was not extensive. A seal or two, a 
pencil-case, a pair of sleeve-buttons, and a brooch of no great 
value were all. They were severally examined and appraised 
by old Joe, who chalked the sums he was disposed to give 
for each upon the wall, and added .them up into a total 
when he found that there was nothing more to come. 

"That's your account," said Joe, "and I wouldn't give 
another sixpence, if I was to be boiled for not doing it. 
Who's next?" 

Mrs. Dilber was next. .Sheets and towels, a little wear- 
ing apparel, two old-fashioned silver teaspoons, a pair of 

98 



THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS. 99 

suo-ar-tono-s, and a few boots. Her account was stated on 
the wall in the same manner. 

" I always give too much to ladies. It's a weakness of 
mine, and that's the way I ruin myself," said old Joe. 
" That's your account. If you asked me for another penny, 
and made it an open question, I'd repent of being so liberal, 
and knock off half a crown." 

"And now undo my bundle, Joe," said the first woman. 

Joe went down on his knees for the greater convenience 
of opening it, and having unfastened a great many knots, 
drao-o"ed out a large and heavy roll of some dark stuff. 

"What do you call this.?" said Joe. "Bed-curtains!" 

" Ah ! " returned the woman, laughing and leaning for- 
ward on her crossed arms. " Bed-curtains ! " 

"You don't mean to say you took 'em down, rings and 
all, with him lying there ? " said Joe. 

" Yes, I do," replied the woman. " Why not ? " 

"You were born to make your fortune," said Joe, "and 
you'll certainly do it." 

" I certainly sha'n't hold my hand, when I can get any 
thing in it by reaching it out, for the sake of such a man 
as he was, I promise you, Joe," returned the woman coolly. 
" Don't drop that oil upon the blankets, now." 

" His blankets .? " asked Joe. 

" Whose else's do you think .? " replied the woman. " He 
isn't likely to take cold without 'em, I dare say." 

"I hope he didn't die of any thing catching? Eh?" 
said old Joe, stopping in his work, and looking up. 

" Don't you be afraid of that," returned the woman. " I 
an't so fond of his company that I'd loiter about him for 

99 



lOO THE LAST OF THE SPHUTS. 

such things, if he did. Ah! You may look through that 
shirt tin your eyes ache ; but you won't find a hole in it, nor 
a threadbare place. It's the best he had, and a fine one too. 
They'd have wasted it, if it hadn't been for me." 

" What do you call wasting of it ? " asked old Joe. 
" Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure," replied 
the woman with a laugh. " Somebody was fool enough to 
do it, but I took it off again. If calico an't good enough for 
such a purpose, it isn't good enough for any thing. It's 
quite as becoming to the body. He can't look uglier than 
he did in that one." 

Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat 
grouped about their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by 
the old man's lamp, he viewed them with a detestation and 
disgust which could hardly have been greater though they 
had been obscene demons, marketing the corpse itself. 

"Ha, ha!" lausjhed the same woman when old Joe, 
producing a flannel bag with money in it, told out their 
several gains upon the ground. " This is the end of it, 
you see! He frightened every one away from him when 
he was alive, to profit us when he was dead! Ha, ha, ha!" 
" Spirit ! " said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot, 
" I see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be my 
own. My life tends that way, now. Merciful Heaven, what 
is this!" 

He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and 
now he almost touched a bed : a bare, uncurtained bed : on 
which, beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered 
up, which, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful 
language. 



THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS. loi 

Tlic room was very dark, too dark to l^e ol)served willi 
any accuracy, though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience 
to a secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of room it 
was. A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon 
the bed; and on it, plundered and bereft, unwatched, un- 
wept, uncared for, was the body of this man. 

Scrooge glanced toward the Phantom. Its steady hand 
was pointed to the liead. The cover was so carelessly ad- 
justed that the slightest raising of it, the motion of a finger 
upon Scrooge's part, would have disclosed the face. He 
thought of it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed 
to do it ; but had no more power to withdraw the veil than 
to dismiss the .Spectre at his side. 

Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar 
here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy 
command: for this is thy dominion! But of the loved, 
revered, and honored head, thou canst not turn one hair to 
th)- dread purposes, or make one feature odious. It is not 
that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released; it 
is not that the heart and pulse are still ; but that the hand 
was open, generous, and true ; the heart brave, warm, and 
tender; and the pulse a man's. Strike, Shadow, strike! 
And see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow 
the world with life immortal ! 

No voice pronounced these words in .Scrooge's ears, and 
yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed. He 
thought, if this man could be raised up now, what w^ould 
be his foremost thoughts ? Avarice, hard dealing, griping 
cares .'' They have brought him to a rich end, truly ! 

He lay, in the dark emjjty house, with not a man, a 



I02 THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS. 

woman, or a child to say he was kind to me in this or that, 
and for the memory of one kind word I will be kind to him. 
A cat was tearing at the door, and there was a sound of 
enawinsf rats beneath the hearth-stone. What i/iey wanted 
in the room of death, and why they were so restless and 
disturbed, Scrooge did not dare to think. 

"Spirit!" he said, "this is a fearful place. In leaving it, 
I shall not leave its lesson, trust me. Let us go!" 

Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the 
head. 

" I understand you," Scrooge returned, " and I would do 
it if I could. But I have not the power. Spirit. I have 
not the power." 

Again it seemed to look upon him. 

" If there is any person in the town who feels emotion 
caused by this man's death," said Scrooge quite agonized, 
" show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech 3'ou ! " 

The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a 
moment, like a wing : and withdrawing it, revealed a room 
by daylight, where a mother and her children were. 

She was expecting some one, and with anxious eager- 
ness ; for she walked up and down the room ; started at 
every sound ; looked out from the window ; glanced at 
the clock ; tried, but in vain, to work with her needle ; 
and could hardly bear the voices of the children in their 
play. 

At length the long-expected knock was heard. She 
hurried to the door, and met her husband ; a man whose 
face was careworn and depressed, though he was young. 
There was a remarkable expression in it now; a kind of 



THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS. 103 

serious delight of which he felt ashamed, and which he 
struggled to repress. 

He sat down to the dinner that had been hoarding for 
him by the fire ; and when she asked him faintly what 
news (which was not until after a long silence), he appeared 
embarrassed how to answer. 

"Is it good," she said, "or bad?" — to help him. 

" Bad," he answered. 

" We are quite ruined .'' " 

" No. There is hope yet, Caroline." 

" If //(• relents," she said, amazed, " there is ! Nothing is 
past hope, if such a miracle has happened." 

" He is past relenting," said her husband. " He is dead." 

.She was a mild and patient creature if her face spoke 
truth ; but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she 
said so, with clasped hands. .She prayed forgiveness the 
next moment, and was sorry; but the first was the emotion 
of her heart. 

" What the half-drunken woman whom I told you of last 
nisht said to me, when I tried to see him and obtain a 
week's delay, and what I thought was a mere excuse to 
avoid me, turns out to have been quite true. He was not 
only very ill, but dying, then." 

" To whom will our debt be transferred ? " 

" I don't know. But before that time we shall be ready 
with the money; and even though we were not, it would be 
bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a creditor in his suc- 
cessor. We may sleep to-night with light hearts, Caroline!" 

Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter. 
The cbidren's faces hushed, and, clustered round to hear 

'03 



I04 THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS. 

wliat they so little understood, were brighter ; and it was a 
hap23ier house for this man's death ! The only emotion that 
the Ghost could show him, caused by the event, was one of 
pleasure. 

" Let me see some tenderness connected with a death," 
said Scrooge; "or that dark chamber, Spirit, which we left 
just now will be for ever present to me." 

The Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar 
to his feet; and as they went along, Scrooge looked here and 
there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen. They 
entered poor Bob Cratchit's house; the dwelling he had vis- 
ited before ; and found the mother and the children seated 
round the fire. 

Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as 
still as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at Peter, 
who had a book before him. The mother and her daugh- 
ters were engaged in sewing. But surely they were very 
quiet ! 

" ' And He took a child, and set him in the midst of 
them.' " 

Where had Scrooge heard those words ? He had not 
dreamed them. The boy must have read them out as he 
and the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why did he not go 
on .•' 

The mother laid her work upon the table, and put her 
hand up to her face. 

" The color hurts my eyes," she said. 

The color.? Ah, poor Tiny Tim! 

"They're better now again." said Cratchit's wife. "It 
makes them weak by candle-light; and I wouldn't show 

104 



THE LAST OF THE SPIREfS. 105 

weak eyes to your father when he comes home for the world. 
It must be near his time." 

" Past it rather," Peter answered, shutting \\\i his book. 
" But I tliink he's walked a little slower than he used these 
few last evenings, mother." 

They were very quiet again. At last she said, in a 
steady, cheerful voice, that only faltered once: 

" I have known him walk with — I ha\-e known him walk 
with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder very fast indeed." 

" And so have I ! " cried Peter. " Often." 

"And so have I!" exclaimed another. .So had all. 

" But he was very light to carry," she resumed, intent 
upon her work, "and his father loved him so, that it was 
no trouble — no trouble. And there is your father at the 
door! " 

She hurried out to meet him; and little Bob, in his 
comforter — he had need of it, poor fellow — came in. His 
tea was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried who 
should help him to it most. Then the two young Cratchits 
got upon his knees and laid each child a little cheek against 
his face, as if they said, "Don't mind it, father. Don't be 
grieved ! " 

Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly 
to all the family. He looked at the work upon the table, 
and praised the industry and speed of Mrs. Cratchit and the 
girls. They would be done long before Sunday, he said. 

"Sunday! You went to-day then, Robert?" said his wife. 

" Yes, my dear." returned Bob. " I wish you could have 

gone. It would have done you good to see how green a 

place it is. But you'll see it often. I promised him that I 



105 



io6 THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS. 

would walk there on Sunday. My little, little child ! '" cried 
Bob. " My little child ! "' 

He broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. If he 
could have helped it, he and his child would have been 
farther apart, perhaps, than they were. 

He left the room, and went upstairs into the room above, 
which was lighted cheerfully, and hung with Christmas. 
There was a chair set close beside the child, and there were 
signs of some one having been there lately. Poor Bob sat 
down in it, and when he had thought a little and composed 
himself, he kissed the little face. He was reconciled to 
what had happened, and went down again quite happy. 

They drew about the fire and talked, the girls and mother 
working still. Bob told them of the e.xtraordinarv kindness 
of Mr. Scrooge's nephew, whom he had scarcely seen but 
once, and who, meeting him in the street that day, and see- 
ing that he looked a little — "just a little down, you know," 
said Bob, inquired what had happened to distress him. " On 
which," said Bob, " for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentle- 
man you ever heard, I told him. ' I am heartily sorry for 
it, Mr. Cratchit,' he said, ' and heartily sorry for your good 
wife.' By the by, how he ever knew ^/lat I don't know." 

" Knew what, mv dear ? " 

" \\^hy, that you were a good wife," replied Bob. 

" Everybodv knows that ! " said Peter. 

" Very well observed, my boy ! " cried Bob. " I hope they 
do. ' Heartily sorrv,' he said, ' for your good wife. If I can 
be of service to you in any way,' he said, giving me his card, 
' that's where I live. Pray come to me.' Now, it wasn't," 
cried Bob, "for the sake of any thing he might be able to 

1 06 



THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS. 107 

do for us so mucli as for his kind way tliat tliis was quite 
delightful. It really seemed as if he had known our Tiny 
Tim, and felt with us." 

" I'm sure he's a good soul ! " said Mrs. Cratchit. 

'■You would be surer of it, my dear," returned Bob, "if 
you saw and spoke to him. I shouldn't be at all surprised 
— mark what I say — if he got Peter a better situation." 

"Only hear that, Peter," said Mrs. Cratchit. 

" And then," cried one of the girls, " Peter will be keep- 
ing company with some one, and setting up for himself." 

" Get along with you ! " retorted Peter, grinning. 

"It's just as likely as not," said Bob, "one of these days; 
though there's plenty of time for that, my dear. But how- 
ever and whenever we part from one another, I am sure we 
shall none of us forget poor Tiny Tim — shall we? — or this 
first parting that there was among us.''" 

"Never, father!" cried they all. 

"And I know," said Bob, "I know, my dears, that when 
we recollect how patient and how mild he was, although he 
was a little, little child, we shall not quarrel easily among 
ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in doing it." 

"No, never, father!" they all cried again. 

"I am very happy," said little Bob, "I am very happy!" 

Mrs. Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the 
two young Cratchits kissed him, and Peter and himself shook 
hands. Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy childish essence was from 
God! 

" Spectre," said .Scrooge, "sometliing informs me that our 

parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not how. 

Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead .f" " 

107 



io8 THE LAST OF THE SPHilTS. 

The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come conveyed hhii, as 
before — though at a different time, he thought: indeed there 
seemed no order in these latter visions, save that they were 
in the Future — into the resorts of business men, but showed 
him not himself. Indeed the Spirit did not stay for any 
thing, Init went straight on, as to the end just now desired, 
until besought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment. 

" This court,' said Scrooge, " through which we hurry 
now, is where my place of occujaation is, and has been for 
a length of time. I sec the house. Let me behold what I 
shall be in days to come." 

The Spirit stopped ; the hand was pointed elsewhere. 

" The house is yonder," Scrooge exclaimed. " Why do 
you point away ? " 

The inexorable finger underwent no change. 

Scrooge hastened to the window of his ofifice, and looked 
in. It was an office still, Ijut not his. The furniture was 
not the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself. 
The Phantom pointed as before. 

He joined it once again, and wondering why and whither 
he had gone, accompanied it until they reached an iron gate. 
He paused to look round before entering. 

A churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man whose 
name he had now to learn lay underneath the ground. 
It was a worthy place. Walled in by houses; overrun by 
grass and weeds, the growth of vegetation's death, not life ; 
choked up with too much burying; fat with rcpleted appe- 
tite. A worthy place ! 

The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down 
to One. He advanced toward it trembling. The Phantom 

loS 



THE LAST OF THE SPIREFS. 109 

was exactly as it had been, Init he dreaded that he saw new 
meaning in its solemn shape. 

" Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point," 
said Scrooge, " answer me one question. Are these the 
shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of 
the things that May be, only.^^" 

Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which 
it stood. 

" Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if 
persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. " But if the 
courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is 
thus with what you show me ! " 

The Spirit was immovable as ever. 

Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went, and fol- 
lowing the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave 
his own name, Ebenezer Scrooge. 

" Am / tliat man who lay upon the bed .'' " he cried, upon 
his knees. 

The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again. 
" No, Spirit ! Oh no, no ! " 
The finoer still was there. 

"Spirit!" he cried, tight clutching at its robe, " hear me ! 
I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must 
have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this if I 
am past all hope t " 

For the first time the hand appeared to shake. 
"Good Spirit," he pursued, as down upon the ground he 
fell before it, " your nature intercedes for me and pities me. 
Assure me that I yet may change these shadows )'ou have 

shown me by an altered life ! " 

109 



no THE LAST OF THE SIHRTTS. 

The kind hand trembled. 

" I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it 
all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the 
Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. 
I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell 
me I may sponge away the writing on this stone ! "' 

In his agony he caught the spectral hand. It sought to 
free itself, but he was strona; in his entreaty, and detained 
it. The Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him. 

Holding up his hands in one last prayer to have his fate 
reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and 
dress. It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bed- 
post. 



5 till) c /inc. 

THE END OF IT. 



- <<' 




THE END OF IT. 

YES! and the bedpost was his own. The Ijcd was his 
own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, 
the Time before him was his own, to make amends in! 

'•I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!" 
Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. " The Spirits 
of alf Three shall strive within me. O Jacob Parley! 
Heaven and the Christmas Time be praised for this! I 
say it on my knees, old Jacob ; on my knees ! " 

' He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good inten- 
tions that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his 
call. He had been sobbing violently in his conflict with 
the Spirit, and his face was wet with tears. 

"They are not torn down," cried Scrooge, folding one 
of his bed-curtains in his arms, " they are not torn .down, 
rings and all. They are here: I am here: the shadows of 
the things that would ' have been may be dispelled. They 
will be. I know tliey will ! " 

His hands were busy with his garments all this tmie : 
turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, tear- 
ing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every 
kind of extravagance. 

■'I don't know what to do!" cried Scrooge, laughing 



■3 



114 THE EXD OF IT. 

and crying in tlic same breath, and making a perfect Lao- 
coon of liimself with his stockings. " I am as h''>ht as a 
feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a 
schoolbo}'. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry 
Christmas to everybody! A liappy New Year to all the 
world. Hallo here ! Whoop ! Hallo ! " 

He had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now stand- 
ing there, perfectly winded. 

" There's the saucepan that the gruel was in ! " cried 
Scrooge, starting off again, and frisking round the fire-place. 
" There's the door by which the (ihost of Jacob Warley 
entered; there's the corner where the Ghost of Christmas 
Present sat ! There's the window where I saw the wander- 
ing Spirits! It's all right, it's all true, it all happened. Ha, 
ha. ha!" 

Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so 
many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. 
The father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs! 

" I don't know what day of the month it is ! " said 
Scrooge. " I don't know how long I've been among the 
Spirits. I don't know any thing. I'm quite a baby. Never 
mind. I don't care. I'd rather be a baby. Hallo! Whoop! 
Hallo here ! " 

He was checked in his transports by the churches ring- 
ing out the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clang, 
hammer, ding, dong, bell. Bell, dong, ding, hammer, clang, 
clash ! Oh, glorious, g-lorious ! 

Running to the window, he opened it and put out his 
head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold; 
cold, piping for the blood to dance to; Golden sunlight; 

"4 



THE EXn OF IT. 115 

Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; meny l)clls. Uh, glorious, 



glorious ! 



"What's to-day?" cried Scrooge, calling downward to a 
boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look 
about him. 

" Eh ? " returned the boy, with all his might of wonder. 

"What's to-day, my fine fellow.^" said Scrooge. 

" To-day ! " replied the boy. " Why, Christmas Day." 

"It's Christmas Day!" said Scrooge to himself. "I 
haven't missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one 
night. They can do any thing they like. Of course they 
can. Of course they can. Hallo, my fine fellow ! " 

" Hallo ! " returned the boy. 

" Do you know the Poulterer's, in the next street but one, 
at the corner?" Scrooge inquired. 

" I should hope I did," replied the lad. 

"An intelligent boy!" said Scrooge. "A remarkable boy! 
Do you know whether they've sold the prize Turkey tliat was 
hanging up there? Not the little j^rize Turkey: the big one ? " 

" What, the one as big as me ? " returned the boy. 

"What a delightful boy!" said Scrooge. " It's a pleasure 
to talk to him. Yes. my buck ! " 

" It's hanging there now," replied the boy. 

" Is it ? " said Scrooge. " Go and buy it." 

" Walk-ER ! " exclaimed the boy. 

" No, no," said .Scrooge, " I am in earnest. Go and buy 
it, and tell 'em to bring it here, that I may give them the 
direction where to take it. Come back with the man, and 
I'll give you a shilling. Come back with him in less than 
five minutes, and I'll give you half a crown!" 



ii6 THE EXD OF IT. 

The boy was off like a shot. He must have had a steady 
hand at a trio-oer who could have o-ot a shot off half so fast. 

" I'll send it to Bob Cratchit's ! " whispered Scrooge, 
rubbing his hands and splitting with a laugh. " He sha'n't 
know who sends it. It's twice the size of Tiny Tim. Joe 
Miller never made such a joke as sending it to Bob's will 
be ! " 

The hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady 
one, but write it he did, somehow, and went down stairs to 
open the street door, ready for the coming of the Poulterer's 
man. As he stood there, waiting his arrival, the knocker 
caught his eye. 

" I shall love it as long as I live ! " cried Scrooge, patting 
it with his hand. " I scarcely ever looked at it before. 
What an honest expression it has in its face! It's a won- 
derful knocker ! — Here's the Turkey. Hallo ! Whoop ! 
How are you ? l\Ierr\- Christmas ! " 

It zuas a Turkey ! He never could have stood upon his 
legs, that bird. He would have snapped 'em short off in a 
minute, like sticks of sealing-wax. 

"Why, it's impossible to carry that to Camden Town," 
said Scroosre. " You must have a cab." 

The chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle 
with which he paid for the Turkey, and the chuckle with 
which he paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he 
recompensed the boy, were only to be exceeded by the 
chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his chair 
aq-ain, and chuckled till he cried. 

Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued 
to shake very much ; and shaving requires attention, even 



ii6 




-irA ;s".-..-"'7 



V 



THE END OE IT. 



117 



when you don/t dance wliile 3T)u are at it. liut if he had 
cut the end of his nose off, he would liave put a piece of 
sticking-plaster over it, and been quite satisfied. 

He dressed himself " all in his best," and at last eot out 
into the streets. The people were by this time pouring 
forth, as he had seen them with the Ghost of Christmas 
Present; and walking with his hands behind him, Scrooge 
regarded every one with a delighted smile. He looked so 
irresistibly pleasant, in a word, that three or four o-ood- 
humored fellows said, " Good morning, sir ! A merry Christ- 
mas to you ! " And Scrooge said often afterwards, that of 
all the blithe sounds he had ever heard, those were the 
blithest in his ears. 

He had not gone far, when coming on towards him he 
beheld the portly gentleman who had walked into his count- 
ing-house the day before and said, " Scrooge and Marley's, I 
believe.'" It sent a pang across his heart to think how this 
old gentleman would look upon him when they met; but 
he knew what path lay straiglit before him, and he took it. 

" My dear sir," said Scrooge, quickening his pace, and 
taking the old gentleman by both his hands, "how do you 
do? I hope you succeeded yesterday. It was very kind of 
you. A merry Christmas to you, sir!" 

"Mr. Scrooge?" 

" Yes," said Scrooge. " That is my name, and I fear it 
may not be pleasant to you. Allow me to ask your pardon. 
And will you have the goodness" — here Scrooge whispered 
in his ear. 

" Lord bless me ! " cried the gentleman, as if his breath 
were gone. " My dear Mr. Scrooge, are you serious ? " 

117 



ii8 THE END OE EE. 

" If you please," said Scrooge. " Not a farthing less. A 
o-reat many back-payments are included in it, I assure you. 
Will you do me that favor.''" 

" My dear sir," said the other, shaking hands with him, 
"I don't know what to say to such munifi — " 

"Don't say any thing, please," retorted Scrooge. "Come 
and see me. Will vou come and see me ? " 

"I will!" cried the old gentleman. And it was clear he 
meant to do it. 

" Thank'ec," said .Scrooge. " I am much obliged to you. 
I thank you fifty times. Bless you ! '' 

He went to church, and walked about the streets, and 
watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted children 
on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into 
the kitchens of houses and up to the windows, and found 
that e\'erv thing could yield him pleasure. He had never 
dreamed that any walk — that any thing — could give him 
so much Jiappiness. In the afternoon he turned his steps 
towards his nephew's house. 

He passed the door a dozen times before he had the 
courage to go up and knock. But he made a dash, and did 
it: 

" Is your master at home, my dear .'' " said Scrooge to the 
girl. Nice girl ! Very. 

" Yes, sir." 

" Where is lie, mv love ? " said Scroosfe. 

" He's in the dining-room, sir, along with mistress. I'll 
show you upstairs, if vou please." 

" Thank'ee. He knows me," said Scrooge, with his hand 
already on the dining-room lock. I'll go in here, my dear." 

iiS 



\ 




THE EXn OF IT. 119 

He turned it gently, and sidled his face in, nnmd the 
door. They were looking at the table ( which' was spread out 
in great array); for these young housekeepers are always 
nervous on such points, and like to see that every thing is 
right. 

"Fred!" said Scrooge. 

I^ear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started! 
Scrooge had forgotten for the moment, about her sitting in 
the corner with the footstool, or he wouldn't have done it, 
on any account. 

"Why, bless my soul!" cried Fred, "who's that?" 

" It's I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. 
Will vou let me in, Fred .'' " 

Let him in ! It is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off. 
He was at home in five minutes. Nothing could be heartier. 
His niece looked just the same. So did Topper when he 
came. So did the plump sister when she came. So did 
every one when they came. Wonderful party, wonderful 
games, wonderful unanimity, won-der-ful happiness! 

But he was early at the oiifice next morning. Oh he 
was earlv there. If he could only be there first, and catch 
Bob Cratchit coming late ! That was the thing he had set 
his heart upon. 

And he did it; yes he did! The clock struck nine. No 
Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full eighteen min- 
utes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his door 
wide open, that he might see him come into the lank. 

His hat was off before he opened the door; his comforter 
too. He was on his stool in a jiffy, driving away with his 
pen as if he were trying to overtake nine o'clock. 

119 



I20 THE END OF IT. 

" Hallo ! " growled Scrooge in his accustomed voice, as 
near as he could feign it. "What do you mean by coming 
here at this time of day ? " 

" I'm very sorry, sir," said Bob. " I am behind my time." 

" You are ? " repeated Scrooge. " Yes, I think you arc. 
Step this way, if you please." 

" It's only once a year, sir," pleaded Bob, appearing from 
the Tank. " It shall not be repeated. I was making rather 
merry yesterday, sir." 

" Now, I'll tell you what, my friend," said Scrooge, " I 
am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And 
therefore," he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving 
Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into 
the Tank a^ain : "and therefore I am about to raise vour 
salary ! " 

Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He 
had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it, 
holding him, and calling to the people in the court for help 
and a straight-waistcoat. 

"A merry Christmas, Bob!" said Scrooge, with an ear- 
nestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on 
the back. " A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than 
I have given you for many a year! Ill raise your salary, 
and endeavor to assist your struggling family, and we will 
discuss your affairs this very afternoon over a Christmas 
bowl of smoking bishop. Bob ! 

" Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before 
you dot another i. Bob Cratchit I " 



Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and 



THE END OE IT. 



121 



infinitely more; and to Timy Tim, nvHo did xot die, he was 
a second father. He became as good a fnend, as good a 
n^aster, and as good a n.an as the good old city knew, or 
any other good old city, town, or borough in the good old 
world. Some people laughed to see the alteration m h>m, 
but he let them laugh, and little heeded them ; for he was 
wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this 
o-lobe for good at which some people did not have then" hll 
of laughter in the outset ; and knowing that such as these 
would be blind any way, he thought it quite as well that 
they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins as have the mal- 
ady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and 
that was quite enough for him. 

He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived 
upon the Total Abstinence Principle ever afterwards: and it 
was alwavs said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas 
well if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that 
be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tmy Tim 
observed, God Bless Us, Every One! 



THE END. 



c^ 



Vr, 



'^ - I "jri, 



